Features On The Road

No Trick, A TREAT!

Saturday, October 12th was the last race for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Road Atlanta, known as Petit LeMans, a 10-hour race.

Road Atlanta is a 2.258 mile track with two straightaways, up hills, downhills, tight corners, big turns, all you would want in a road course.  Participating will be 34 entrants in 4 classes which produces a race with constant lapping of cars.

The two Porsche’s again in retro paint of red and the Coca-Cola name and logo on them for this race, in the home town of Coca-Cola.  Read about this in my article ‘Porsche and WHAT!‘.

The #912 with Lauren Vanthoor qualifying, with Earl Bamber and Mathieu Jaminet, qualified in 4th while the #911 with Nick Tandy qualifying, with Patrick Pilet, who had visited our Wallingford Porsche meeting this year, also had Mathieu Jaminet qualified in 5th.

The team was not happy as the weather warmed up today and the tires were used up to quickly to come back with a great qualifying time toward the end of the season, when others did their best times.  Also the team was struggling to come up with a top straight away speed that they were happy with and were searching for answers.

In GTLM the 4 manufacturers, Ford, Chevrolet, BMW and Porsche with a total of 8 cars qualified with a difference from the pole position of .378 of a second and a difference of only 2 tenths of second separating the 4 manufacturer cars.  That is how competitive this GTLM class and series.

Saturday the race started at 12:05 pm and would race during the day and into the night to the end at 10:05 pm.  The Porsche’s pushed hard all day and into the night when close to the end a yellow flag came out and with earl Bamber driving the #912, gave his all in the GTLM class for a podium, only to finish in 5th while the sister car #911 driven at the end with Nick Tandy finished in 6th.

The TREAT was this gave Earl Bamber and Laureen Vanthoor the GTLM drivers champions with Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet runners up.   Also, Porsche was the GTLM Champions for the Manufacturers and Team. A GREAT Triple WIN for an October TREAT.

This follows Porsche also winning the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) in Europ.

IN GTD Class, Porsche development driver Lars Kern (Weissach) and Canadian teammates Zacarie Robichon and Scott Hargrovve scored on the podium driving the Porsche 911 GT3 R and the Pfaff Motorsports.

This gave the team a third place in GTD for their debut year.  A team to watch as the had a very noticeable red plaid decorated Porsche also.

The Porsche of Park Place Motorsports with drivers Patrick Long and Patrick Lindsey, did not participate in this race this year.  this was due to a large crash by Patrick Lindsey at Laguna Seca where the chassis was damaged beyond repair and a new chassis, this late in the season, was not quickly available.  We will see what happens next year.

This was the 50th race for this existing Porsche 911 RSR.  This also was the last race for it and will be proudly sent to the Porsche museum.  Next year the new Porsche 911 RSR will compete setting its own destiny.

Porsche also starts a new adventure with its debut into Formula E with their two new 99X open-wheel race cars.  Drivers Neel Jani and Andres Lotterer will take these new Porsche 99X, all-electric, race cars to a new era of Porsche racing.  November 22 and 23rd in the Diriyah E-Prix at Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.  Where will electricity take Porsche and us in the future.  Read my next article on Formula E.

Hope to see you in the future at the 60th CVR Anniversary Celebration or any future CVR event or race track.

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