Saturday was cold, but mostly calm and sunny at Thunderhill. Below is a picture of the overall first (Rotek Racing Audi TT RS with headlights on in back) and second (yellow Barrett Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup) place finishers (both ES class) with the second place ESR in front (Factory 48 Radical SR3) . The Rotek ran a consistent race with a pretty fast front wheel drive car with professional drivers (Rob Huff, Robb Holland, and Roland Pritzker). They were not the fastest car out there (mid to low 1:50 laps), but finished with about a 30 lap lead ahead of Barrett Racing.
The GMG Racing Audi R8-LMS had mostly amateur drivers. They were quite fast at times (hitting the mid 1:40s), but also had at least 30 minutes of penalty time over the course of the race (and caught on fire in the last 20 minutes). This is the Pirelli World Challenge car, not the GTD. Here they are passing the Nixon Prosports 2 Honda Fit that mostly acted as a slow moving road cone (but I believe did finish the race).
Overall third place and first place ESR Radical West Racing on the starting grid:
On the right is the JFC Racing Wolf GB08S driven by Ivan Bellarosa and Al Unser Jr & III. This car had the quickest qualifying time and race lap time of 1:37. Very fast but they had lots of challenges. They looked like they could make a come back after the first setbacks, but then didn't finish.
These guys caught fire on lap 3 repaired the car overnight and rejoined the race in the morning:
Other people working on cars:
Overall, it is a very laid-back facility and a great place to watch some racing. Saturday daytime was nice, but over night I heard the temperatures went to 19 F and didn't warm up too quickly in the morning, then got windy. Next time I would see about bringing a smart phone to stream the race broadcast audio and live timing (T-Mobile had a mobile cell tower there and Verizon had patchy coverage: the track isn't exactly in a developed area).
7 comments:
I put on the audio coverage but no track sounds to go with it. Any spectator bleachers/mounds?
The hill in the infield between turns 8 and 9 gave more or less clear views of turns 5 - 9 and 14. There were a couple mini bleachers but not in great places. There was no place to really see the pit lane.
Both the Davidson Racing 1 and Team Quick Racing Products sounded great on the track.
On Sunday I watched the Rotek in-car livestream from the 034motorsport website and listened to Endurance Radio.
I don't think the SkyActiv works at that temperature.
how did the RX3 sound?
http://cdn-0.motorsport.com/static/img/mgl/1600000/1650000/1651000/1651200/1651240/s1_1.jpg
I don't recall the RX3 being notable, but that isn't to say that it wasn't.
FYI, Ivan Bellarosa put the JFC Wolf on the pole with a 1:37 in qualifying, but Al Unser Jr turned the fastest lap of the race in that car with a 1:37.
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