Pic Post- Patron GT3 Challenge

The other support race for the 12 Hours of Sebring was the Patron GT3 Challenge, essentially a Porsche GT3 Cup class as there are no other makes allowed, yet. The Patron Challenge runs in support of select ALMS events, and it has proved to be quite popular, with more cars in the Challenge than there was in the actual 12 Hours! The cars are pretty quiet (essentially the same thing as the GTC class that ran the main event), but despite this they're a lot of fun to watch. Lots of sliding, lots of varying skill levels and everything from small-time single-car teams to large, extravagant operations. This sort of uneven skill and monetary level means some varying and sometimes rather creative racing lines are used by a lot of the cars, despite all the similarities in base equipment.



I suppose even the small time at this level isn't what you would call cheap, but considering that you can by a low-hour 2008 GT3 Cup car for less than $150k, it's not exactly expensive either. The older cars won't have the horses, as they use a 3.6 motor, but it's got everything else...sequential transmission, Motec data acquisition, the works. And with a little bit of luck, you might just end up with something to really be proud of...something with some substance. This 3rd place car from Auto Body Ltd had a very small, unmarked trailer, with a small tent and crew of as many family members as anything else, and they went back to Canada with some goodies.





A terrible location for pictures I know, but they were really pushing through here, as the Kelly-Moss car demonstrates.





I could be wrong, but the Maxwell Paper Products car appears to have a left front tire going down in this picture.



On the flip side of the money and crew spectrum, NGT (when announced I thought they said NGP, which rather obviously had me doing a double take) had about 5 cars in the event, a HUGE transporter with absolutely top of the line equipment. They more or less dominated, as their trophy table made clear...and spared no expense in doing so.















Taxmasters (!) had a lot of dough on display as well, with three cars in the race. I really liked the 70s inspired colors and designs being run by these, as well as other cars in the event.



Finally (finally!), we'll have a full pic post from the race itself a little later on this week...including what I consider to be the very best picture I have ever taken. The results may be in but we've still got some cool stuff to see, including some great night-time shots.

Full size pics as usual, over here.

_WRS