Petite Le Mans: Racing in the Land of the Blind...

Far too often in iRacing, drivers focus on the “i” and pay little respect to the other drivers with whom they share the track. Such was the case at Road Atlanta’s 2016 Petite LeMan where Russell described the event as “...racing in the land of the blind”. Nevertheless, our vApex Racing Group teams persevered and our Porsche team achieved a win; our other teams were not so fortunate, but man was it fun!

Porsche C-Spec Purple (Russell, Howard, and Shane): They all met a few day before the race and agreed on a setup with no fuss. They entered the “Strength of Field” 9AM Saturday event, but unfortunately got run over by multiple faster class cars, leading to a spin, and an hour worth of repairs! The team then headed over to the 1PM Saturday event, started on pole, and ran strong all day until a GT3 crashed in the esses and decided to drive around the track back to the pit. On the back straight, at the crest of the hill, the damaged car was on the right side and drifted across the whole track, running our car off track where it scraped the wall. The repairs put them about 8 laps down, but they preserved, drove the wheels off it, and won by 65 laps! Rumor has it they could have exited the race with 1 hour and 20 minutes remaining and still won! Incredibly, only 0.07 seconds covered all three of their fastest laps! Obviously, a really solid team! Russell said “It was a really fun day with lots of great camaraderie, chuckles, swears, etc.”

Corvette C7 Red (Chuck, Kevin, Rick and Kurt): Their 1 PM Saturday event could best be described as "the one that got away"... they set the fastest race lap and had a way better driver lineup, but things just didn't go their way. They started on the front row and stayed on the lead lap throughout the first half of the race, were easily catching the leader and was within 1 sec of taking the lead… but, were taken out by a combination of factors at the bridge. There was nothing anybody could really do; just before the bridge, a BMW moved from left to center, opening the left for our C7, but the BWM moved to center to avoid a barely moving Audi that the C7 couldn’t see until it was too late. They repaired that car, drove the wheels off and steadily moved from P6 to P3, but racing in the land of the blind is tough and misfortune eventually ended their day. Regardless of the finish, it was so much fun… but, definitely one that that got away. Chuck said “He’d rather the race end in tears knowing we had a winning team, than just showing up and hoping for the best.” The team worked hard and were fantastic together… It was so much fun.

Corvette C7 Green (Scott, Mikey, and Dave): They ran fantastic in the 1PM Saturday race… but blew the motor while leading - they were the only car left on the lead lap! So much disappointment, yet still so much fun.

Mercedes GT3 Black (Ted, Andy and JC): JC offer this: “No comment…” but not his signature 2 periods and an exclamation mark. So… no one is quite sure how they fared in the land of the blind.

So, as Scott Kennedy said: “That's racing! The disappointments make the victories that much sweeter.”

Thanks to all who contributed to this event and summary.