12 Hours of Sebring and Tacos

Round two of iRacing’s endurance events occurred on a sunny day in Sebring Florida. The usual vApex Racing Group cast of characters showed up to duke it out with the masses, while JC pulled up some lawn chairs, Clark whipped up some tacos, and Dave handed out a few LaBatts, eh?

GT Team Red

Our GT Red team, with Clark, Shane, Erich and Chuck, got the 3rd split and qualified 24th. They elected to start from the pits (P32) to avoid the inevitable L1, T1 or T2 crashes that always seems to plague Sebring, particularly those a little unfamiliar with multiclass racing. It turned out to be a good move because they kept the car clean and by mid-race had moved up to 27th. Clark ran the first 2 stints with no real drama. Erich ran the 2nd two stints and it too was pretty uneventful. He was running P12 when he handed the car off to Shane, but Shane had to contend with a LOTS of aggressive, impatient drivers and between dive bombing C7 drivers and aggressive lapped GT cars, he had an eventful 2 stints, leading to a little barrel roll in T15.

They had 18 minutes of repairs, but the car felt just fine on Chuck’s 2 stints, though a little slow on the straights. The overall speed was not hurt that bad though. Chuck had a few issues during his stints and couldn’t avoid a spinning car and took a little extra front end damage and then had a half-self-spin late in his last stint while the track was super greasy. Still, the team managed to move up 2 spots from 24th to 22nd and finished the race.

Corvette DP Team Green

Team Green drivers Mikey, Kevin, and Dave got the top splits with some really fast drivers – right where they belong! They said it was awesome running in the top split and their times were, at times, equal to the leaders. They reported that the track was wildly different, throughout the entire race, and nothing like any practice. Mikey had been on a roll in practice a couple nights but never qualified. He made a decision to single stint the first part of the race (and possibly lost a lap) and then during his 2nd stint, spun the car, and lost the 2nd lap, yet felt like they could've at least been -1 lap for much of the following.

After that, as he was getting back up to speed, he was bumped and spun by a fellow Corvette DP in T1. After that, as he was getting back up to speed, he was bumped again by a fellow Corvette DP and spun by a proto in T1. That's right, he said it twice. However, there was minimal damage in all incidents, but just an indication of how aggressive the top split can be. So Mikey really set the table for Kevin's stint, finally a double, mired in traffic, edging on 3 laps down. But, status quo from there on and Kevin, Dave and Mikey were all setting the same times, the track finally came around, and they just plugged away to the finish, but no further positions to be had – they finished P15, 7 laps down. Still, they did a great job at running their own race and had a blast just trying to lay down laps. Their team seems to be coming together and all the guys said what a pleasure it was racing together. They also said it was a fun race, with good battles and fast cars; rude people here and there, but nothing race ending. Their parting shot: "We’ll get 'em next time!!" And I think they just might…

GT Team Blue

Team Blue, just Andy and JC (no Ted), had a great result. They started P49 and finished in P19. Yep, gained 30 places. Did some pit strategy early as we triple stinted each time we got in the car and JC double stinted tires - twice...Was running in 15th when Andy got punted in his last stint. They said they had an excellent car for the first time since switching from the Audi to Mercedes.

Corvette DP Team Purple

Team Purple driver Russell, German, Rick and Jeff Yeager ran in the second chance race and started P12. Amyone know where they finished? Can you pass me a Labatt, eh?

Tacos anyone?