Features On The Road

Porsches-People-Racing, YAHOO!

On July 16-17th, 2021 CVR and PCA had the Porscheplatz and car corral at the NorthEast Grandprix held at lime Rock Park. It was great to get together and see many CVR and IMSA friends, Porsches, and racing at Lime Rock Park, FINALLY TOGETHER! Even though it was HOT, it was a great event and time to enjoy the open air of Lime Rock.

Along with Porscheplatz and CVR was the Porsche corral track drive!

With practice on Friday, followed by qualifying, the spectators and teams endured the 90+ degree temperatures and high humidity. This brought about a lot of drinking water and Gatorade.

The #79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19, with Cooper MacNeil and Porsche factory driver Matthew Jaminet supported by the Proton team, raced against the Corvettes in the GTLM class. It was interesting to see that Matthew Jaminet had set the fasted lap time in the GTLM class with a 50.746 but yet only qualified in third place.

In GTLM there were only two Corvettes and the WeatherTech Racing Porsche. In GTD there were 13 teams, including three customer Porsche 911 GT3 R teams: #16 Wright Motorsports with Patrick Long and Trent Hindman (West Long Beach, New Jersey), #9 Porsche GT3 R Pfaff Motorsports team in Plaid, from Canada, of course, with Laurens Vanthoor and Zacharie Robichon, who won the GTD class in 2019 at Lime Rock Park and also the #88 Porsche GT3 R Team Hardpoint EBM with Rob Ferriol and Katherine Legge. The Porsche teams qualified the #9 Pfaff in 6th, the #16 Wright in 8th, and the #88 Team Hardpoint in 12th.

Saturday brought more high temperatures in the 90’s with again more high humidity, I even think more humidity than Friday. Along with the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship is the Michelin Challenge race where Porsche customer teams race the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport. There you could watch great racing among many different types of race cars. Wright Motorsports had the #16 Porsche 718 Cayman with drivers Jan Heylen and Ryan Hardwick. The #16 Wright Motorsports Cayman started in 21st and finished on the podium at 3rd. Halfway thru the season and they are tied for the championship. John Wright, owner of the team is very proud of their accomplishments this season.

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The Saturday WeatherTech Sportscar Championship started late in the day at 3:10 pm after the pre-race warmup at 1:55 pm and open grid/fan walk. At the start, we saw the two Corvettes take the lead and not give it up for the whole race. In GTD, as the race progressed, we watched the GTD cars take on the class with 13 cars and the Lime rock track. Anticipating the heat and humidity, the teams planned to switch drivers, fuel, and tires halfway through the 2-hour 40-minute race. The weather then changed with dark clouds, a temperature drop, and the wind picking up, finding the race red-flagged with 1 hour and 29 minutes left because of lightning. Not “Lightning McQueen” but lightning from Mother Nature, within the IMSA safety area of 8 miles of the track. The rules state that if lightning strikes within 8 miles of the track, a 30-minute timer starts and then restarts after every new strike within the area, for the safety of the drivers, flaggers, participants, spectators and the television crew (many were in the air on lifts). So with the first delay of 30 minutes, it brought the clock to around 4:45 pm. Other strikes followed, bringing the time that the race would end to after the city imposed 6:00 pm time limit of racing at Lime Rock Park, which stopped the race.

The finish in GTLM for the Porsche teams was 3rd for the #79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche, 4th for the #9 Pfaff Porsche, 8th for the Wright Motorsports Porsche, and 12th for the #88 Team Hardpoint Porsche.

Patrick Long said, ” I’ve never had a race where I wasn’t able to get in”. Yes, Patrick Long never got into the race to do his stint of racing, which threw off the team’s strategy. Yes, there are rules that stipulate the time that is required for each driver to participate in the race but IMSA did not enforce that rule due to the time elapsed and situation the weather and track had imposed on the race. Patrick was not the only driver to not race.

Again it was great to get together with the many CVR participants and new CVR members that I met with at Porscheplatz, and as always, I hope to see you soon at another race, Porsche/car event, or CVR event.

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