Features On The Road

On The Road – Sebring 2019

On my drive  to the Sebring race I realize two things, one the highway speed limit is the same temperature-65, a great feeling. Secondly “NO POT HOLES!”, another great feeling. Maybe I am just easy to please this March.

Here at Sebring on Friday for the Super Sebring weekend is the 1st race of three this weekend with the Michelin Pilot Challenge. Porsche is in this race with the new Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport. Talking to Scott Hargrove, driving for AWA motorsports in the Cayman and for Pfaff motorsports in a Porsche in GTD Saturday in the 12 hour Sebring race having won the Canadian Porsche Championship. The small changes that Porsche has done, he can feel the difference in the car. He will be racing along Mercedes AMG GT4, Audi R8, Mustang GT4, Aston Martin AMR Vantage and BMW M4 GT4 and Mclaren GT4, Chevrolet Camaro GT4. They didn’t qualify great, 20th and did not finish great, 23 rd place, but after talking to a Porsche friend I found out that because for what the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport did at Daytona, that IMSA imposed them an 80lb weight adjustment of the “Balance of Performance”. This will take some time for IMSA to adjust them and the other cars but with a few races it will be shifting to other teams and will have to wait and see what happens. Next comes the WEC Sebring 1000 mile race. Yes many of the European teams came here as the second round of their series, World Endurance Championship. That race started at 4:00pm and would run until around midnight. It was with 12 minutes to the end of the race when torrential rain set in and the Safety car came out to finish the race with TOYOTA Alonso Winning the Prototype LMP1 class, their second win since winning at Le Mans. It was Porsche winning both the LmGTPro class with Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni and LmGTAm class with the Patrick Dempsey team. A great start to the weekend as Porsche with Patrick Pilet taking the Pole position in the GTLM IMSA WeatherTech series. It was nail biting as he did the lap early in the qualifying time period and just sat in the car in pit lane waiting to see if he had to go out again or as it turned out just sat there at had the pole position.

The next day Saturday at 10:40am starts the Mobil 1 Twelve hours of Sebring. The day starts with rain, light but steady which has the race start under yellow with the Safety car around the track for 40 minutes until the rain slows and they wave the green flag. Eventually the rain stops and with overcast clouds and in the low 80’s makes for a great day. The Porsches fall back in the GTLM class but late in the race, a quick tire change put the #911 Porsche ahead of the leading BMW. The Fords take over the race and proceed to lead the race for most of the race while Porsche is in 5 to 7th place most of the day. But as they say “the race is not over until the Checkered Flag waves” and with less than one hour left to the race, Nick Tandy and the Porsche #911 GT RSR get by the #67 Ford GT while the Ford was on his out lap just past turn 7 which ends up to be the winning pass of the day. While Porsche almost had 4 wins out of 4 class races, the Pfaff Porsche GTD had ABS problems in the later part of the race, ended their chances of winning their class. Oh, you can’t miss or forget the Pfaff Porsche GTD as it is in a red PLAID color scheme. It was a SUPER WEEKEND with 3 great races that were all exciting til the finish and a great selection of cars and drivers.

I hope you noticed that Porsche has covered their cars in the historic colors and design of the Brumos colors and paint scheme of the icon red and blue hood, roof and engine lid panels along with the red and blue stripe along the sides.  But as usual Porsche has gone farther in detail and include the icon number 59 in the panels.

I did find one CVR member while talking to Patrick Long, Mitchell and Kathy Kahn. Maybe we can make a group trip next year and many other CVR members can enjoy the nice warm, sunny weather in the middle of March, not like the Northeast weather.

The Porsche Platz this year was the biggest ever and good thing they doubled the size of the tent. They are getting ready to come the Lime Rock Park for us this year. See you at a race or CVR meeting this year

I would like to conclude this article, as you now have the ability to see photos in COLOR.  I would like to thank Shelley for the many years making my Black and White photos and articles look great.  THANK YOU!

Let us all go forward with this new way to see OUR monthly magazine this way and enjoy!

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