Saturday, March 21, 2015

12 Hours of Sebring: Hour 7

We are back to green, with Scott Dixon, in P1 at the moment.  Dane Cameron is keeping pace with the leaders.  Dixon did not pit under this most recent yellow flag.  Joao Barbosa is trying Antonio Garcia, for position.  Twelve laps ago, Action Express, completed the 10,000 mile mark.  Colin Braun gets a lap back.  He's quick off a restart.  Conor Daly passes the Corvette.  The #17 Falken Porsche is going to be overtaken by the first and second place cars in Prototype Challenge.  Daly is losing his rear tires, and the car is not handling.  The broken diffuser on the back of the car, can't be helping matter for poor old Conor Daly.

Patrick Long is second in GTLM.  Long has Antonio Garcia right up his tailpipe.  Garcia goes down the inside and makes the move stick.  Patrick Long is still the only American factory Porsche driver.  Car #1 is pitting.  Ryan Dalziel brought the car in.  They have a steering problem.  These cars have to be packed up, and shipped to Europe, tomorrow.  Alex Popow is becoming irritated behind Tommy Milner's Corvette.  He wants to pass.  Popow is beginning to get desperate.

In 1969, John Wyre Engineering and the Ford GT40, with Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver, won Sebring.  45 years later, Ford won again, with the Ganassi team of Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas, and Marino Franchitti.  The #1 ESM Tequila Patron HPD has gone behind the wall.  Richard Westbrook passes Joao Barbosa.  Well, actually, it's the opposite.  Barbosa, passes Westbrook.  Dane Cameron, wants another lap back.  Fred Makowiecki drops a wheel through turn 16.  Patrick Pilet at the wheel of the #911 Porsche 911 RSR.  Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy, will be in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Barbosa runs wide.  Did he just go offline?  He's back up to speed now.  Westbrook passes Jeroen Bleekemolen in the #33 GT Daytona SRT Viper.  ESM is going to load up, tomorrow morning, after Sebring, and they will head to Heathrow Airport in London, on their way to the Paul Ricard High Tech Test Track in Le Castellet, France, for the open test for the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship.  No longer do drivers and teams, stick around Sebring, after the race. 

The #4 Corvette of Tommy Milner is having some issues.  He was going slowly towards tgurn ten, pulling to the side of the road, with a need to shut the motor down, and reboot the car, picking up marbles on the tires in the process.  He is back underway.  Tight stuff into the hairpin with the #10 and #90.  With Milner, his seat belts came undone.  Scott Dixon will be pitting soon, in another five minutes.

The Ford is on different fuel strategy compared to the Corvette's.  Good news from IMSA officials, is that crewman Kevin Fox, is unhurt, after that incident in the pits.  IMSA officials just put out the news brief.  The #01 is in the lane for a scheduled stop.  Oh no!  Tracy Krohn spins his Ligier Judd in turn ten.  He goes back around the corner, and finds a hole in traffic, recovering.  #10 pits.  Ricky Taylor out.  Jordan Taylor in.  The #90 car is in, too, blowing out the radiators.  Grass and sand is in the radiators.  Richard Westbrook, out.  Michael Valiante, in.

Tom Kimber-Smith pitted the #52 Prototype Challeng car.  Kimber-Smith has been in the wars.  He has only one headlight.  It gets extremely dark at Sebring.  It will get dark at 8:00 P.M.  It's one thing to drive in the dark at Daytona, because it's well lit.  Night at Sebring, is pitch black.  Jeroen Bleekemolen is running very well.  Last year, these blokes were on fire, here.  Today, they are running out front.  The team does not speak about it.

Conor Daly comments about the roughness of Sebring, and how greasy the track is, with loads of rubber laid down.  The Pro/Am drivers have to manage their time in the car.  The #5 car pits, for tires.  No driver change.  Likewise for the #3 Corvette.  Ben Keating's extreme fire in this race last year, actually was not as bad as it looked.  The car, was salvageable, and the same car is being run today.

Scott Dixon, continues to lead.  He has been a Sebring polesitter, and he's looking for another win.  None of his fellow Indycar drivers, join him here.  Can Dixon win the Rolex 24, and the 12 Hours of Sebring in the same year?  We'll see.  The Indycar season, starts next weekend.  Dane Cameron is making up laps from the earlier issues the #31 car had.  If they come back, they could be a threat.  Christopher Haase is hounding Ian James, and the two of them, try to chase down Jeroen Bleekemolen.  Christina Nielsen is fourth in GTD.  Haase forces the issue, and Joao Barbosa sweeps around both of them!

Haase says, "OK, I'm pitting now."  There's lots of body roll in the Aston Martin.  Christopher Haase has to do a drive through penalty.  The gendarmes, stopped him, for speeding.  Barbosa is eating up Dixon through the high speed stuff.  Bryce Miller is now in the #48 Audi.  Miller will have to serve the speeding penalty.  #5 is door to door with the #01, using a Ferrari as a pick, and it worked!"

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