Victory for Oreca at Sebring

While the drivers are off at the podium receiving the accolades, the Team Oreca Matmut crew takes a moment to celebrate in their own way with the car they spend so much time with, and sent to victory lane at the 2011 12 Hours of Sebring. It was a great race. Back from Sebring with many more pictures to share and video to edit, but first, sleep...it was  a heck a of a drive back to NYC, and my mind needs a little time to catch up. 

_WRS

Waiting and wishing

I don't know about you, but I'm officially sick of the cold weather...and it's not even Winter yet. Right about now the only thing keeping me going, aside from copious amounts of spiked egg nog, is the thought of a warm spring. We'll be making the trek back down to Sebring Florida for the 1st American Le Mans race of the year, where this photo was taken back in March. It was a warm Friday evening as the cars were going out for night practice, and Peugeot was sending one of their all-conquering 908s to the track.

Here's to an early Spring!

_WRS

Audi manages the impossible, wins 2010 Le Mans with 1-2-3 sweep

In what turned out to be a brutal race of attrition and failures, the trio of Audi R15s forced all four of the Peugeot 908 HDI FAP cars into retirement, and held on to win, taking the top three spots in LMP1 and win the overall. The #9 car of Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller encountered zero problems and ran a flawless race, finishing in a well-earned first position. It seemed highly unlikely that Audi would be able to take a podium spot, let alone the win, but the Peugeots all succumbed to terminal problems, indicating their blistering fast qualifying pace may have been more of a bluff than most would have assumed.



Clicking off 3:20 laps was not a problem for the Peugeots, who were as much as 5-6 seconds a lap faster than the revised R15 on Wednesday, but it was pace they simply could not keep up. After the top-qualifying #3 908 went out early with tub failure, the #2 car held a commanding lead, hunted by Audis in second, third and sixth. Early Sunday morning the #2 gave up its lead with a blaze of fire from the right bank indicating terminal engine failure.



The #1 Peugeot was then in full attack mode, running lap after lap at qualifying pace before it too went out with a bang just before 7 o'clock. The final remaining #4 908 of Team Oreca Matmut was the lone wolf in the silver Audi herd, and was pressing even harder than the #1, setting fastest lap of the race and very nearly catching the #7 Audi for third position before blowing up in exactly the same spot as the #2 did, with flames from the right back on the out lap from a pitstop.



Clearly they were focused on an all-or-nothing result, and in the end they got nothing.



GT2 saw Porsche return to the winner's circle at Le Mans after many years of missed chances and a complete absence from the podium last year, with the #77 Felbermayr Proton Porsche RSR of Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Wolf Henzler, from Team Falken Tire, taking the class win.



The BMW Art Car M3 did not do well, ending up with several punctures and multiple problems before finally being retired. It will also go down in infamy as it caused Tom Kristensen to go off at the Porsche curves on one of those occasions. Still it looked great, even if the results were not such.



Sadly none of the teams from the ALMS fared well, with strong runners such as Corvette and Risi running each other into the ground and allowing the Porsches to step into the win. Highcroft had cooling problems, and Autocon and Jaguar barely managed to start, let alone finish. As they say to finish first, first you must finish, and nothing exemplifies that like this year's 24.

_WRS

Pictures:

www.speedtv.com

Le Mans official Facebook

Sebring 2010 - Race day cometh (and goeth), part dos

When we last visited Sebring, we had just stopped off at home base for a quick break and a little respite from the beautiful, but relentless Florida sunshine. To a northerner like myself, who spent all winter couped up in a small NYC apartment, the risk of a sunburn was well worth all the time outside.



The race itself was rather unfortunately decided by problems for the LMP1 challengers to Peugeot, more than actual racing, not that anyone really thought anyone other than Peugeot was going to win outside of a freak accident taking out both cars.





LMP2 Saw the Acura (sorry) HPD from Highcroft in a commanding lead over the slower but consistent Porsche RS Spyder, and the Dyson Lola Mazda with its early on bad luck.



GTC saw the Misson Foods Porsche from Alex Job Racing run start to finish in P1 in class. The Alex Job crew swept the podium in fact.



LMPC was pretty spread out, and the #55 Level 5 Motorsport car took command of the class and eventually the first ever LMPC win at Sebring.



GT2 was where the real battle was, and everyone knew it. The Corvettes managed to pull off a most uncharacteristically disgraceful move which put both cars out of the running: They ran into each other in the pits.



The BMWs and Flying Lizard Porsche #45 were always going to be in the fight, but Risi was the early on leader, and definitely the one to beat in these long run races.





Rather embarrassingly for Porsche, the #17 Falken Tire car shed a wheel (its second) which managed to tag the #45 Flying Lizard, and thanks to some bungling of the yellow flag / pace car timing, it sat in the pits for several laps before anyone was able to work on it. This effectively ended the Lizard's chances of a win.



Falken tire had problems of their own, with repairs needed to ensure no more wheels would be lost (stub axle and halfshaft I believe), which then dropped them down the order in no time thanks to the competitive field. One mistake of any kind in GT2, and you're done.





At any rate, we ran into our buddy Michael H Locke a few more times throughout the day, and he had plenty to say about the wild antics of Sebrings past. Going through my photos I realized I never took a picture of Michael...I should have, as it's the people that make events like Sebring as memorable as they are. Sure the cars are great and they are the primary draw at the end of the day, but it's randomly meeting some person who can impart a whole new perspective on the event to a newcomer like myself, which really takes it to the next level.











As the day turned into night things really hit their stride. The perfect light that washes over everything, causes it all to glow like something out of a memory. A summertime baseball game as a kid, a road trip with friends in college, that familiar feeling that this is something special, that must (and will) be remembered for years to come.



As the temperature fell the battle on the track began to heat up. An electrical problem for the Highcroft car meant that the Team Cytosport Muscle Milk RS Spyder took P1 in LMP2. A position it would hold until the end.



Dyson was out and running, but out of the running, so to speak.





By the way, it's worth mentioning that the SCCA's track cars were some fantastically 80s Nissan models. This rare Stanza wagon was one, and a classic 'square-back Maxima' was the other...



As mentioned, the Peugeots were on cruise control, and nothing much was expected from them in terms of on-track excitement.



GT2, just like the start of the race, was anything but calm. The two BMWs from Rahal Letterman were charging hard to try and catch up to the Risi Ferrari, itself about a lap up thanks to another safety car bungle.







Flying Lizard was charging hard to try and make it as close as they could, but with a field as closely matched as this was, it simply wasn't going to happen.



Both the #44 and #45 were pushing it though, and time and time again they were leaving the concrete of turn 17 as they bumped along the old bomber base surface.



The Falken Tire Porsche RSR was pushing hard too. So hard they were getting BOTH right side tires off the ground in 17. They were in a race of their own to complete 70% of the distance covered by the leaders, or risk being not classified.



In this, their first full season of ALMS competition, every lap and every point will count. Even now, with this new team, it's never too early to start thinking about championships. For Bryan Sellers and Wolf Henzler, Sebring wasn't exactly ideal, but then it wasn't ideal for anyone really, outside of the class winners, all of whom had a fairly substantial cushion between them and their closest challenger.



As the fireworks shot towards the sky, and the engines died down as suddenly as they started, everyone still capable of walking made their way to the winners area. There were many who were not, whether that be through too many drinks or too many miles of walking around the track.





Some of the cars were out on the front stretch (all the class winners) but for some reason the Dyson car was there in place of the Cytosport Porsche. Who knows, maybe they took a wrong turn. Either way, they were all heavily guarded from the throngs of people crowding around, much like the open grid at the start of the race.



It should be noted this is probably a good thing, as people were beginning to tear down everything that wasn't bolted down to take home as a souvenir. I can imagine that some people might have just been drunk enough to try and walk off with a bit of a splitter, or a wing, or maybe even a number off of a car.







Josh stalked the Michelin Man for a photo op...



Crazily enough we decided to drive the two hours back to West Palm Beach to crash at Kevin's place before heading north the next day. It was rough. Luckily Josh was up for it, as I didn't have the energy to drive anywhere, and the sunblock that migrated into my eye didn't make things any better.

The following day, after a great brunch thanks to Kevin and his lady Marcy, we embarked on our blitz back to the north. No stopping this time, just trading off time at the wheel in an effort to make it through DC before Monday morning rush hour. I decided that even though I was tired, we had to stop at the legendarily bizarre South of the Border for a few snaps. I think this was about 1am. Or maybe it was 3, I can't recall...



At any rate, we did make it through DC before the worst of it, just barely, and I had the rather unenviable task of driving through Northern Virgina at that time. Stop and go is even less fun after you've been driving for 15 hour straight, with less than enough sleep. We made it from West Palm Beach Florida to New York City in 19.5 Hours, with a 65 MPH average. The total trip was a whopping 2810 miles in 5 days, with an average cost of $3.05 per gallon for 93 octane premium fuel...a total of 88.078 gallons of gas. We had a 28.2 MPG Average over the first 2486.8 miles, with a stop speed of around about [redacted]mph...



So will we do it again? Absolutely. Will we drive? Most definitely. Will we give ourselves a little more time? Without question.

More (many / larger / better) pictures at the Flickr account. Believe it (or not) we're STILL not done with Sebring. In the final installment we will take a peak around the paddock area, both before and during the race. It will be the (maybe) last look at Sebring. For a while at least...

One last thing - This post was done with manually sized pictures, linking to the original images over on Flickr. This means that clicking the image takes you directly there. I was wondering if this caused the page to load slowly for anyone? Please let me know in the comments if it did / didn't. Thanks!

_WRS

Sebring 2010 - Race day cometh (part one)

Morning always comes too early for me, regardless of how much (or how little) sleep I've managed to bank. Quite simply, I'm not a morning person, but there are a few occasions where I can manage to overcome this character flaw. One of those occasions is race day. Not show day, race day. The promise of burnt rubber, race fuel and angry engines is one powerful motivator, perhaps even more so than coffee. And I fucking LOVE coffee. (Zeke's is the place to go BTW)

So Kevin, Josh and myself were up bright and early on Saturday March 20th to head north from Lake Okeechobee up to Sebring International Raceway. As usual I was excited and ready to roll from the get-go, and didn't even mind having to put on sunblock before 8am. Outside the weather was beautiful, and there was a bitchin' Chevy outside the hotel glistening in the morning sun, which I took to be a good omen. Today was going to be rad, to use the parlance of my youth, and there was not a cloud in the sky.



The sun was beating down across the vast Australian Outback Florida Plains, and before you knew it we were inside the raceway.



Parking was proving to be more of a hassle than the previous two days but we seriously lucked out. A guy in a red fire suit with press credentials had his head poked inside the cab of a truck just across from where we had parked before, and we asked if he knew whether parking in that area was restricted. His response was that it most definitely was not, and that it was his truck and trailer and if we could park him in that would be great. That way no "drunken assholes would be pissing on his tires" or something like that. This was our first introduction to Michael Locke, official track photographer for Sebring Raceway. Nice guy, and more from him later...he had some stories to tell, as this was to be his 49th (!) Sebring.

The grid was calling. The cars were calling, and the crowds were well, crowding. And the grid was full of madness.



It was exceedingly hard to get a clean shot, even with the lens set all the way down to 18mm. Fish eye would have been ideal.



Josh get's a shot for the live blogging updates on his iphone as Kevin absorbs the scene.



The cars were prepped, clean, and ready to go. Most had a number of the team members there to watch over the cars and ensure they at least took the green flag in one piece.





We moved down and took position at turn one. Turn one is really a blast to see in person, as it's very fast and very bumpy on exit. With the 'reserved' parking of RVs and the custom built structures right up against the fence it was hard to get a good view. And when we did, we were mainly looking at a throng of photographers with proper vests....which we had not bothered to try and get this year. Next year for sure....



I had more shots than I care to think of with other photographers in the shot. I deleted a bunch, but some have a nice look. At any rate, the race was on, and it was pandemonium into turn one.



The field streamed through without any issues, and the two cars starting from the pits made their way out shortly after. The #90 BMW was the pole-sitter in GT2, but failed a stall test and as such started from the rear of the grid. On a stall test, IMSA plugs the inlet restrictors on the engine, and the engine should stall within a certain number of seconds. If it does not it indicates that the engine is getting air from someplace other than the inlet restrictor, and the car flunks the test. It's a big deal, especially as the pole sitter.



We were impressed to see the great-looking Falken Tire Porsche RSR in the lead of the GT2 freight train the next time by. It maintained the lead for several laps, when it began to fall back into the middle of the pack. It was by far the high point of the day for Team Falken Tire, but I'm sure they learned a lot for their tire development, which is their main goal of the ALMS program.





Peugeot rather predictably took the overall lead. I didn't shoot many pictures of the 908s, mainly because cars that run uncontested are boring to me, but also becuase they don't grab me in the same way as the BMWs, Porches, Ferraris and Corvettes.



In GTC the Mission foods #81 was pole sitter, and winner, and was pretty much in command all day. I didn't mind, I love their tortilla chips!



LMP2 was cool, and the Dyson car was my favorite, but they fell back early with engine problems. (not all that surprising, the AER / Mazda has not been the best in my opinion.)



As we made our way around the top side of the track with Ed (from Porschebus) and his wife (who's name I cannot recall....I apologize!) we stopped to shoot pics and check on progress. The Drayson Lola / Judd managed to be quite a thorn in the side of the #8 thanks to Emmanuel Pirro. Alternator problems put them out of contention.



Things settled down after the initial slicing and dicing and most cars got into a bit of a groove, or so it seemed. I didn't get as many shots of the Robertson Ford GT as I would have liked, but I couldn't seem to get the focus on this that I could on the other cars.



I guess one mans sprint is another man's groove. Just a couple hours in, and many more to go for this corner worker.



There were a number of VWs in attendance. I liked this clean Mk5 with RS6 wheels. Josh recognizes the car from Twitter, or VW Vortex, or someplace.



Remember what I said about photographers in my shots? Still, the Lola Aston Martin looked great and sounded the best of all the cars...



But still not as good as a Porsche 911, in my rather biased opinion.



The BMWs of Rahal Letterman racing were consistent and fast, and one of my favorites to shoot as they went past.



Josh posing with the legendary La Bamba racing mobile...



LMPC is a spec class, there's no getting around it, but the Oreca LMPs really look sweet, and with their 6.2L V8s uncorked, they would really be something else...



Round and round....



Eventual class-winning Risi Ferrari, at my favorite corner.



Not everything is all spread out after the green flag drops. Traffic jams like this one happen quite frequently, and you can bet there are more than a few 'moments' out there during the 12 hours.



Ah...a shot of the Aston Martin without a photographer!



And insert earplugs.........now!



Just out of the famous hairpin. Early in the day, but many hours to go.



We went back to base for some event-appropriate refreshments.



Base camp was directly across from the on-side impound lot. People took the opportunity to park just about anywhere they could, but some places were clearly off limits. Sebring Raceway actually had more than one wrecker working this lot.



And here is where we end for this installment. Once we get refueled and cooled down a bit, we'll embark on part two, into the night....



Go to the FLICKR page for a TON of additional pics.

_WRS