Rennteam 2.0 - EN - Forum - Re: OT - RC: A question of history - Page1

Nov 10, 2005 6:27:36 PM

Turbo Al: Rennteam Pro; Loc: Rochester, New York , United States; Posts: 2531, Gallery; Registered on: Apr 3, 2005; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
RC said:

My biggest dream would be to meet you all during some sort of meeting or larger event. Maybe sometimes in the near future, who knowns?!

I have had the exact same thought all summer since I joined the team. Even a few beers at next March's Geneva Auto Show as SoCalAlan has suggested would be cool-my passport is up-to-date, the Swiss ski resorts are nearby, and maybe the 997TT in the flesh will be there.

I'm game for Florida too, as Ron has suggested-although mid-winter would be better-all us northerners would have a good excuse to go south.

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Nov 10, 2005 6:33:25 PM

throt: Rennteam VIP; Loc: London , United Kingdom; Posts: 6078, Gallery; Registered on: May 9, 2005; Reply to: Turbo Al

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

I wont have a P but you should sill be able to spot me...

throt..

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Nov 10, 2005 6:53:23 PM

schao: Co-Pilot; Loc: CT, USA; Posts: 185, Gallery; Registered on: Jul 12, 2005; Reply to: throt

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Very nice to learn of the history behind rennteam, RC and others. My occupation allows me to travel freely worldwide, so name the place and time for a gathering and I'll gladly join and offer a financial contribution to the operations of this website.

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Nov 10, 2005 8:52:50 PM

Carlos from Spain: Rennteam Moderator; Loc: Spain. , Spain; Posts: 21148, Gallery; Registered on: Feb 9, 2003; Reply to: schao

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

I have been around the forums for several years now due to my Sportcar/Porsche "addiction", but this is the only one that I would call "home"; the atmosphere, the quality of the discussions, the lack of commertial interst and hidden agendas, the honesty and altruism of the "renn-teamers", the internationality of the members, the hot news and info always first available here, Christian, etc... and want to thank Christian and CR for providing us with this great place. I always try to add my grain of salt with whatever I can just as an attept to give little back.

I have been extremly busy lately with barely any free time for myself, but not a day will by that I don't step through the Rennteam door to meet with you guys after a hard days work.

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Nov 10, 2005 9:46:36 PM

art.italy: Co-Pilot; Loc: Italy , Italy; Posts: 291, Gallery; Registered on: Apr 7, 2002; Reply to: Carlos from Spain

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

I' was following RC since funcarsonline too, I look at rennteam everyday and even if i don't post so much especially due to the fact that english is not my mother language, i really think this is by far the BEST as quality.

Thank you Christian, i know it takes a lot of work, time etc but please try to keep this site at the same very high level as it is!

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Nov 10, 2005 9:51:50 PM

iia: Pilot; Loc: Canada; Posts: 342, Gallery; Registered on: Aug 24, 2004; Reply to: art.italy

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Great story! How do the Moderators be selected? And how come they are all over the world?

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Nov 10, 2005 9:56:45 PM

pic911s: Junior; Loc: canada; Posts: 145, Gallery; Registered on: Mar 2, 2005; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

This forum has been fabulous and the moderators and RC are really quality people from the commentary I've read. Hats off to you for doing such a marvelous job

And the history lesson while good to know is all in the past now and from what I can tell needs no regurgitation especially for the people that were involved. It's pretty clear to me anyway that the group of people here that started this forum are passionate people about Porsche and in this day and age an unusual lot as they aren't trying to fleece money out of you. Truly commendable.

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Nov 13, 2005 11:09:50 PM

Eurospeed: Junior; Loc: New York; Posts: 101, Gallery; Registered on: Oct 26, 2004; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
Of course I don't mind but please understand that I don't want to wash dirty laundry here on the forum, so I try to be as honest as possible, even if I have to leave out some of the "delicate" things which happened back there.

I was a member of the Funcarsonline discussion team (or better said: one of the "sheriffs" who had to take care of the discussions and their contents). Chris Kramer, the founder and owner of Funcarsonline was a friend by that time and we shared a lot of information and took advantage of various occasions to post REALLY NEW Porsche info. Chris was the FIRST EVER to post pictures of a non-camouflaged Boxster S...one year before this car was actually put on the market. Then, we were able to show the FIRST EVER pictures of the 996 Turbo, not only from the outside but also from the inside, some cars still being camouflaged. This was back in 1999, more than 8 months before the 996 Turbo was actually available for buying. The picture of me and Chris next to a 996 Turbo with "Erprobungsfahrzeug" lettering on the side and on the rear was sensational, it was re-posted on many other forums on the internet.
So yes, Chris and me were the "Porsche" dudes, there were only three or four other people on the internet who were at the same or a similar knowledge/VIP level like Porsche Pete, Viken B. and one or two others.

What happened? Well, very simple. A very dirty campaign started between the various groups. I think it was all about money, egos and again money but naive as I am and actually not interested in earning money with cars and car parts or track events, I didn't realize it by that time.
Chris started to get a little bit kind of an ego-maniac, he started his Porsche parts shop and had a lot of trouble with the Porsche law department. I still didn't see the big picture and was naive enought to think that everybody was an enthusiast like me without any other motives.
Then things started to go really bad, Chris and me were accused by other people to have deleted or modified posts, I never ever actually understood what this was all about but it started with Todd Serota, some funny lawyer from California who apparently was mad at us because we were making fun of his business (track events) and his car (a 996 Cab with various racing parts, wing, etc.). Things got out of control when Chris started to play "king", even starting to remove me as a moderator, then putting me back in, then removing me again and so on. We were talking on the phone all the time and I realized that we don't have anything in common anymore. Apparently the fact that he succeeded to sell a few used GT3 race cars to the US made him think that he is the Porsche god or whatever. He started to treat his users the same way and this is where another guy from Germany, CR, a former member of Funcarsonline jumped in and asked me: why don't we open our own forum, without any commercial background, no shop, no selling, no ads, nothing which would compromise our credibility. I found it to be a great idea but it took us several months until we were able to actually start the project.

Why the name Rennteam? Because we didn't find anything better. We were afraid to use "Porsche" in our site name due to the risk to get trouble with the Porsche law department. By that time, the law department had started some serious threats against other websites using the name Porsche in their site name.

Since Rennteam means "racing team" in German, we went for this name because we simply couldn't think of something better. The start was pretty difficult, me and CR didn't have a clue about forum software, SQL, PHP or whatever. Although it helped a lot that CR owned a communications company and offered to host Rennteam, we both were absolute beginners and didn't have any help. I was lucky that by that time, my daughter was still very young and I had a lot of time at nights (between feeding times ) to work on Rennteam.com.

We also tried to get official Porsche support for our site but without success, they didn't seem to take it too serious what we were planning to do. And the truth is: we never thought of having over 7000 registered members after more than three years only. Some private car forums, national and international, usually never had more than a couple of hundreds of members, some even closed down again. Only the forums supported with ads and press infos were actually successful and we are proud to say that Rennteam.com is the biggest non-commercial advertisement-free Porsche and Sportscars community in the world.

To make a long story short: we are so proud of us and our users, you can't imagine. We were able to establish a peaceful international community of car enthusiasts without ANY hidden agenda or business in mind. Yes, it costs a lot of time and a lot of money, I think that me and CR already spent thousands of Euros for Rennteam, not to speak about our moderators who not only helped us to keep Rennteam.com up and running but also donated money (thanks Ron/Ron from Houston!!!) and the latest forum design (thanks Sönke/zzboba!!!) to keep this site up and running for you all.

I'm sorry if I or any of the moderators sound a little bit harsh, sarcastic or even like a smarta.. sometimes, we're only here to help and to learn too.

With this occasion, I want to thank you ALL for spending your precious time over here, posting infos and pictures and taking active part of this wonderful community.
Without you guys, Rennteam.com would be nothing. THANKS!!!

And a last word: don't underestimate the "power" of our community. Porsche and other sportscar manufacturers, including journalists from various car magazines worldwide, are monitoring Rennteam.com or are even members. We were succesful to create among them a certain credibility.
We are a very powerful car community and believe it or not, we actually succeeded and still are succeeding to influence decisions regarding development and improvement of various cars, especially Porsche cars. Of course there are other forums and they are monitored too but I think we earned ourselves a lot of respect due to the fact that we're trying to keep the discussions at a pretty high quality level compared to other car forums. And our opinion has been always valued very high, unfortunately there seem to be elements in development/marketing/etc. who aren't always loving what we're doing here since our activity sometimes puts them under pressure.

My biggest dream would be to meet you all during some sort of meeting or larger event. Maybe sometimes in the near future, who knowns?!

Thanks again, guys...

Great story RC. Although I recently became a member I would visit and read many threads starting back when you guys first started the site. I was always enamored by the awesome, firsthand, Porsche information coming from a such a reliable German source. The site has only grown, definitely for the better; whereas some other forums tend to go downhill with quality car talk.

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Nov 13, 2005 11:26:32 PM

RC: Rennteam Administrator; Loc: Rennteam HQ , Germany; Posts: 59579, Gallery; Registered on: Mar 26, 2002; Reply to: iia

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
Isaac said:
Great story! How do the Moderators be selected? And how come they are all over the world?

This is the best part of Rennteam: we selected moderators by their dedication and passion, towards sportscars AND this site. One moderator has been kicked out because he didn't post for more than a year, just enjoyed his "status". Another one tried to use his status for a little company advertisement, unfortunately without asking first. But otherwise, the moderators are all great guys and I wish people wouldn't always say "RC here" and "RC there" because honestly, without them, this site would go down the drain in no time. Sometimes I'm away for several days or even a few weeks because of my family (little kids) and/or the business (lots of work, not that much money

) and without the support of the moderators, it would be impossible. And the worst part: we cannot pay them for their work, everything they do, they do for FREE. All of them are hard working people with a real life job and families, this is what true passion and enthusiasm is all about.

We had lots of offers for donations and/or advertisement but how to be unbiased, honest and even tough on some issues if you accept money, even from regular users? Impossible. We would love to earn money with this site, no doubt about it. Who doesn't want to enjoy his hobby and get paid for it at the same time? But I don't see any solution how this could work, especially since I wouldn't want our users having to pay for the same hobby and passion we all share. The only solution would be if Porsche would "rent" us, pay us and let us run this site the way we want it but I doubt this will ever happen. We're not "trustable" since we don't work for them and we wouldn't be controllable either. Too much of a risk for them.

That said, enjoy Rennteam.com as long as it lasts. I already wanted to say good-bye once because I had a lot of stress and I needed to set some priorities (family, job). But I couldn't do it, my ties to sportscars are too strong and I wouldn't want to leave the other guys without moral support and of course some of the interesting rumors, gossip and infos. I just wish I had more money to be able to work less and to be able to do more for this community. I guess I should play the lottery more often...

THANKS a lot again, guys.

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Nov 14, 2005 1:33:59 AM

FixedWing: Veteran; Loc:; Posts: 870, Gallery; Registered on: May 25, 2002; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
RC said:
My biggest dream would be to meet you all during some sort of meeting or larger event. Maybe sometimes in the near future, who knowns?!

I share your dream.

Reading through your post, I am struck by how quickly time has passed. Funcarsonline seems like it was only yesterday. Rennteam certainly has become a success.

Stephen

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Nov 14, 2005 1:56:51 AM

FixedWing: Veteran; Loc:; Posts: 870, Gallery; Registered on: May 25, 2002; Reply to: RC

PAG, Porsche, Rennteam and the importance of independence...

Quote:
RC said:
The only solution would be if Porsche would "rent" us, pay us and let us run this site the way we want it but I doubt this will ever happen.

I understand the economics, but I do think that having PAG bankroll Rennteam would change it forever. I don't think PAG would even have to do or say anything. Just the knowledge that comments could result in the loss of funding would chill debate.

Members -- including myself -- have levelled very reasonable criticisms of Porsche, the cars, and PAG, the company. Isn't one of the best examples of this my own PCCB saga which was almost exclusively discussed on Rennteam for many months before it was finally picked up by the other boards and magazines? What was the result? PAG was forced to deal with many of the customer problems. The information flow made it impossible for PAG to ignore the technical problems and sweep the issue under the rug. It became impossible for PAG to claim that failures were isolated incidences due to misuse.

Eventually, PAG was forced to properly develop the PCCB system so that it could really handle the heat. The 997 was the beneficiary of this. They have now even put the PCCB system on the track to prove its worth (probably something that they should have done at the beginning).

So Rennteam has had a very positive effect. We have both helped ourselves, the Porsche users, and have affected car development to the point of making Porsche into a better car.

But I have to wonder if PAG would share our enthusiasm for what we have accomplished?

Stephen

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Nov 14, 2005 2:53:25 AM

U Boat Commander: Veteran; Loc: Los Angeles, CA; Posts: 1250, Gallery; Registered on: May 8, 2004; Reply to: AS

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

I just want to say thanks RC. I love the forum and am appreciative of all your work to make it happen.

U-Boat

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Nov 14, 2005 4:20:42 AM

PTM: Junior; Loc: Shanghai - For who knows how long?; Posts: 76, Gallery; Registered on: Jul 8, 2005; Reply to: U Boat Commander

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Hey RC - Don't read this:

>>>>>>

Just think - if every active member gave 10 Euros (or more or less depending on what they could afford) - I imagine that would at least help to cover the cost?!?

Maybe a trusted long time member or moderator could organize it through Paypal?

Just a thought.

PTM

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Nov 14, 2005 4:30:13 AM

SVNSVN: Rennteam Pro; Loc: CA, USA; Posts: 2994, Gallery; Registered on: May 22, 2005; Reply to: PTM

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Sounds good to me, PTM.

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Nov 14, 2005 8:36:45 AM

mish: Pilot; Loc: World; Posts: 421, Gallery; Registered on: Jan 16, 2005; Reply to: SVNSVN

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Great board RC. The quality of the discussion on here is unparalleled. I visit a few other sites - and in comparison - they are littered with 'one liner' rubbish.

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Nov 14, 2005 9:07:10 AM

dhayek: Rennteam Master; Loc: Beirut , Lebanon; Posts: 3839, Gallery; Registered on: Jul 7, 2004; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
RC said:
Chris was the FIRST EVER to post pictures of a non-camouflaged Boxster S...one year before this car was actually put on the market. Then, we were able to show the FIRST EVER pictures of the 996 Turbo, not only from the outside but also from the inside, some cars still being camouflaged. This was back in 1999, more than 8 months before the 996 Turbo was actually available for buying. The picture of me and Chris next to a 996 Turbo with "Erprobungsfahrzeug" lettering on the side and on the rear was sensational, it was re-posted on many other forums on the internet.

christian , can we say that the f430 pictures i posted on rennteam where THE FIRST to be published ? if yes well thats another award for our site..

as for me rennteam is like a drug ,its the first thing i do in the morning while checking my mail. so i really thank you and thanks all moderators ,you are all great guys and you all do a fantastic job , rennteam is a part of my daily life for more than 1,5 years and i simply love it!
and christian ,if there is ANYTHING i could do for this site ,please please do not hesitate to tell me about it..

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Nov 14, 2005 10:40:57 AM

easy_rider911: Rennteam VIP; Loc: London , United Kingdom; Posts: 22190, Gallery; Registered on: Nov 8, 2004; Reply to: dhayek

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

RC, I joined rennteam in Nov 2004 and I can sincerely say that I feel a part of something really special. The quality of the discussion is consistently high but equally importantly, what makes this place so special are the people who run it and the people who contribute to this great community.

I feel like if I bumped into anyone from here, we'd pull up a seat at the bar and share a few beers talking with enthusiasm about the latest cars. What a unique atmosphere has been created here. Long may it continue!

Thanks once again to all the people who run rennteam!!

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Nov 14, 2005 3:46:53 PM

zzboba: Rennteam Administrator; Loc: Germany; Posts: 3115, Gallery; Registered on: Apr 8, 2002; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

thanks for the write up RC!:!
very interesting since i didn't know about the funcars history.
i really can't believe how fast time passes! it seems like only yesterday that i've read your postings on sportwagen-hp!

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Nov 14, 2005 8:43:33 PM

RC: Rennteam Administrator; Loc: Rennteam HQ , Germany; Posts: 59579, Gallery; Registered on: Mar 26, 2002; Reply to: zzboba

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
zzboba said:
thanks for the write up RC!:!
very interesting since i didn't know about the funcars history.
i really can't believe how fast time passes! it seems like only yesterday that i've read your postings on sportwagen-hp!

Times goes by so fast, it is incredible.

Thanks a lot for your support, help and of course the new design of Rennteam.com, without you, we would look like

Thanks, Sönke.

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Nov 15, 2005 6:42:03 PM

med: Pilot; Loc: London; Posts: 394, Gallery; Registered on: Oct 4, 2004; Reply to: RC

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Yes, agreed Carlos this is home, whenever I get the chance to catch up with some serious PO stuff (less time these days) I pop in and look up all the gossip and stuff.
This is by a mile the best site out there and I congratulate the moderators and RC for all there hard non profit work.

You guys helped me choose the right car with the right spec for me, funny my dealer always wondered how I was so up to date with the PO changes, leading up to my car build...told him to look into the site.

RC, organize a meeting, somewhere in Europe; It would be great to buy you and the moderators a drink. Also would be nice to catch up with the other members.

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Nov 16, 2005 4:08:14 AM

Avantgarde: Senior; Loc: City State; Posts: 708, Gallery; Registered on: Apr 6, 2005; Reply to: med

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
med said:
...funny my dealer always wondered how I was so up to date with the PO changes,.....

hehe...this was what surprise my dealer too when I told them about information that they have no knowledge of

and sure enough the official info came along and it was 100%right on the dot

.

Keep up the good work fellas!

Cheers

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Nov 16, 2005 12:45:52 PM

PTM: Junior; Loc: Shanghai - For who knows how long?; Posts: 76, Gallery; Registered on: Jul 8, 2005; Reply to: Avantgarde

Re: OT - RC: A question of history

Quote:
Avantgarde said:
Quote:
med said:
...funny my dealer always wondered how I was so up to date with the PO changes,.....

hehe...this was what surprise my dealer too when I told them about information that they have no knowledge of and sure enough the official info came along and it was 100%right on the dot .
Keep up the good work fellas!
Cheers

...funny you gents should mention that. I went through the same process of educating dealers on a few occasions. Now I pick my salesman based on if they can tell me something I don't know, if they own a Porsche, and if they are passionate about it. If they race Porsches they win my business from the get-go.

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