California 8 Hours: Hour 4

Meanwhile, the Ferrari has crashed!  Right in the middle of The Corkscrew!  Slow down!  The other car involved is one of the TCR Hyundai I30N's.  Trevor Baek spun, and the Hyundai with Michael Lewis at the wheel, crunch!, he speared right into the Ferrari.  Pit strategy will now come back into play.  Trevor Baek spun, and Michael Lewis had no place to go.  Ouch!  Both cars are moving.  Now, Lewis will be fine.  But, the Ferrari has broken rear suspension on it.  The Hyundai actually parks.  Baek's Ferrari has a flattened tire and the car is totally toed out.  That is a solid wreck.  They need to put that car on the wrecker.  Poor old Trevor Baek has done very well in Ferrari Challenge.  Marino Franchitti has been doing a lot of work with Baek.  Franchitti finished on the podium with Mazda Team Joest at Petit Le Mans.

Now, the initial contact with this incident, was with Adrien Tambay in the #44 Strakka Racing Mercedes AMG GT3.  That must have been a real big clout.  #44 is the Jack Hawksworth, Adrien Tambay, Christian Vietoris car.  Pit stop time for the leaders.  Stuart Leonard and Patrick Long, right up at the sharp end of the race at this point.  Now, there's some service with the boot up on the Porsche.  Something is wrong with the Porsche.  The oil cooler and radiator are always vulnerable on the car, since Porsche's have been mostly water cooled as opposed to the old air cooled cars, for the last 20 years.  Has Bentley tried to do a short fill on fuel?  They very well could have.

The poor old Ferrari is being loaded onto the rollback.  Not a lot of front end damage to the Ferrari, so it was a glancing blow with the Hyundai.  Vincent Abril will benefit from the GT4 wave by.  Rodrigo Baptista brings the #9 K-PAX Bentley Continental GT3 to the pit lane and will hand the car over to Bryan Sellers.  Christian Vietoris says that the Ferrari just turned into his Mercedes.  Vietoris didn't spin.  The Ferrari spun into The Corkscrew, according to Vietoris' perspective.  Accidents are confusing, for those who witness them, and the same is true in racing.  We are coming close to the halfway mark, and will be at the end of this current hour.

Maybe Trevor Baek can get more track time.  Some GT4 cars are pitting, now that this is an extended yellow flag.  Spencer Pumpelly is easing his way up into the top of the tree in GT4.  We are back to green flag racing.  Vincent Abril brought the cars up to the line very slowly.  Jordan Pepper is making the #7 Bentley Continental GT3 really wide, to get back on the lead lap, holding up Maximilian Goetz in the Mercedes AMG GT3.  Lots of elevation change at Laguna Seca, and it is hard to brake into the corner even though the GT3 cars have ABS.  ABS being anti lock braking system.  A left rear tire puncture for the #63 DXDT Racing car shared by Ryan Dalziel, Mike Hedlund, and the chap currently driving, David Askew.

Jordan Pepper is running 1.2 seconds slower than team mate Vincent Abril, backing up the pack of cars behind him.  Watch out for the curbs, so that tires don't get cut down.  Be patient.  The back side of those curbs are trouble.  The back end of the curb can bend wheels and cut tires down.  Use the smooth side of the curb.  The championship fight between Marciello and Vautier, Marciello's car is quicker as Tristan Vautier in the #175 car is losing pace.  It's around the pace of the individual drivers, rather than the car because both cars in contention are Mercedes AMG GT3's.  Rainey Curve is also a real tough place to put the car without going off the road, and if you do go off the road, you are going to go for a wild ride.

Dirk Werner scraps past Robin Frijns.  He comes back, and Frijns slams the door in Werner's face.  Vincent Abril is running slower than his pursuers.  Lapped traffic is the culprit.  Adrien Tambay was very competitive and a race winner in DTM before coming to GT3.  Maximize opportunity running against your opponents.  Laguna Seca is a very hard track to pass on.  When you as a driver are affecting someone else on your tream trying to win a championship, that's tough.  Meanwhile, some argy bargy between Felipe Fraga and Jordan Pepper!  Yikes!  A good old slap as Pepper kind of came down, and Fraga's right front hit Pepper's left rear.

The bottom skirt on the car has been slightly damaged.  Maximilian Goetz came in just fine, but Felipe Fraga was playing the game of no more Mr. Nice Guy.  Spencer Pumpelly and Andrew Davis have been swapping spots in GT4.  Spencer Pumpelly, has been super fast, but the tire degradation and compliance are a question mark on that Porsche Cayman GT4 racer.  Andrew Davis has had a lot of success in IMSA and in the old Grand American Road Racing Association.  Davis also has been developing, earlier in the year, the Audi RS3 TCR car.  One of those cars was supposed to enter this race, but the team and drivers withdrew, leaving the two Hyundai's to race each other in TCR.

Dirk Werner and Christopher Haase are in a sure humdinger of a battle at the moment.  There is a fresh new crop of good racing drivers coming up into top level sports car racing.  The single seater route is becoming a more impossible path.  You see guys running 2-3 championships, 30 races a year.  Jade Buford in the #10 PF Racing Mustang is pitting.  Simulators are how drivers learn race tracks.  That's because on track testing is becoming too expensive.  Maximilian Goetz, meanwhile, is catching Vincent Abril.  He is within a second.

Andy Soucek chose not to pit during the previous yellow flag.  So, his tires might just be getting knackered.  George Kurtz leads TCR along with the Bryan and Colton Herta.  That's the sole remaining Hyundai in this race.  The Racer's Group team owner, Kevin Buckler, is very impressed with how his drivers and cars are doing.  There's a long way to go.  Kevin Buckler, as an amateur club racing team, was based at Laguna Seca.  We have a driver change for the #8 Bentley.  Maxime Soulet now at the wheel of the Bentley.

Felipe Fraga hits pit lane.  Strakka Racing, again, has done very well learning a totally new car with the Mercedes AMG GT3.  The AMG GT3 was a far more sorted, developed car, than was the McLaren 650S GT3.  Without a doubt, Mercedes and Audi are at the top.  To do the tire changes, you have two blokes in the lane, and just one rattle gun.  Maximilian Goetz leads the motor race overall right now.  #29 is dialing up the wick again, and they are gaining on their competition, currently fifth in the overall with their Audi R8, Christopher Haase at the wheel of it.

We've said it a bunch, but it's been a pleasant surprise to see the Bentley at the sharp end of the field in this motor race so far.  Pit stop time for Andrew Davis in the second place GT4 Audi R8 GT4.  145 seconds for a full service pit stop minimum time.  That is marked for any refueling.  If you need a splash and dash at the finish, it's pretty much game over and your race goes totally pear shaped.  The aforementioned Jorgensen Strom Racing BMW M4 GT4 has gone well, but they may be getting dinged with a drive through penalty for exceeding the 65 minute maximum drive time limit.  If you catch a yellow at the end of your stint, it extends to 70 minutes.

Robert Orcutt and Chris Bellomo both compete in a regional amateur Porsche Cayman club racing championship in California.  Vautier clears the traffic without getting stymied.  Rafaelle Marciello has had an outstanding season.  But, Tristan Vautier wants to beat him for the IGTC cup.  The cream always rises to the top.  Marciello is the driver gradually coming up to being the go to guy for Mercedes GT3.  Also watch Luca Stolz.  Stolz is a silver rated driver, and he is also a top driver.  He should be a platinum rated driver.  Stolz has run with Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating in IMSA GT Daytona, IMSA's GT3 class.  We are coming up to half distance.  This race will get tasty in the next hour or so.

The #75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes is in the lane.  They are repaired and will go back out on track.  They have been in the garage a long time, and they need the 70% drive time.  Excuse me, 70% race distance.  Vautier wants by Goetz for the lead.