Kenny Habul has hit the wall in the esses, in the lowest speed corners on the road. He has backed it into the fence. The team was having a wheel speed sensor affecting the ABS and the traction control. He is back on the track but the rear end of the car is slightly tweaked. Kenny Habul, one of his best pals is country music musician Zac Brown and they are doing songwriting together. Now, there's been a spin again in turn 16 with a couple of LMP3 cars. Yann Clairay is at the controls of the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports car. A mistake by the driver and Austin McCusker takes the extreme wide line before continuing. The GTLM battle rages between John Edwards and Matt Campbell. Campbell won the LM GTE Pro category at the 24 Hours of Le Mans early in his career.
Turn one and turn 17 are always tough. Turn one is blind and turn 17 has all the bumps. Turn 13, the Tower Turn is also really tough to line it up properly on corner entry. Austin McCusker in the Forty7 Motorsports car shares with Jim Norman and Oliver Askew. Actually, it's Stevan McAleer who is the second driver, not Jim Norman. Jimmie Johnson is suited and booted for his next stint in the #48 Cadillac. Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. testing for an entire day testing before they went to the Rolex 24, two decades ago.
Earnhardt Jr. thought he totaled the car, and they fixed it. Jimmie Johnson is now back into the #48 Cadillac. Antonio Garcia is chasing Ian James in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin who is sharing with Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn. This team does work for the Seattle Children's Hospital and the Heart of Racing. #01 is slicing and dicing through GT traffic. That's Renger van der Zande. Meanwhile, Oliver Jarvis is now at the wheel of the #55 Mazda. This is crucial, (i.e. risk assessment). Don't over commit. Turns three, four, and five are slower, but speed picks up between Big Bend and the hairpin. The pace is more predictable and we've not seen great amounts of brake lockup.
We haven't seen many drivers dropping wheels either. That's good to see. Maybe later in the race when it gets dark we will see drivers push harder. Traditionally, this time of day, the track is hot and greasy, but not today. It is cooler and therefore the race is cleaner. Mazda seems to be having a smooth race. Oliver Jarvis is driving. Jonathan Bomarito hyperextended his knee catching it on the steering wheel at the driver change. He hyperextended his knee. Bomarito drove the Mazda RX-8 with Speedsource over a decade ago. Mercedes #75 had no traction control and no ABS and that's why the car spun earlier. Amateur drivers and pro drivers are on such a different level. The pros can rely on their own skill while the amateur drivers use the driver aids.
Kenny Habul sharing with Maro Engel and Mikael Grenier. Madison Snow also moves back by Katherine Legge and these two battled for the championship in IMSA back in 2018. She had a broken leg last year after a testing crash in Europe. Legge raced a road course event in NASCAR Xfinity some years ago. The #48 team is working out well with their pit stops. Drivers can wear a narrow cut driver suit or a boot cut as far as the pant legs, and it depends on what cars you are driving, depending on open wheel, stock cars, sports cars. So, Renger van der Zande is now back to the lead of the motor race in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac.
Jimmie Johnson is still running well, doing his best to go througn the field. Through Cunningham Corner and Collier Curve, turns ten and eleven. Porsche vs. BMW in GTLM. Nip and tuck stuff, look, as John Edwards moves by Cooper MacNeil, the next driver in the serial in the #79 Porsche while Matteo Llarena pits to serve a speeding penalty in the #38 Performance Tech LMP3 car, the Ligier. Llarena, the Guatemalan driver, who ran the Rolex 24 earlier this year at 16 years old, now 17. We welcome 20 time Le Mans starter and six time Sebring starter at Sebring, David Hobbs.
NASCAR boys used to drive wearing boots and they stopped the heat from coming in. So, the #60 MSR Acura pits as well. David Hobbs says the big difference between today and the races of yesteryear is the incredible pace. Three drivers instead of two. The cars are amazingly strong and reliable. In the old days, you had to baby the car. Changing brake pads used to take forever. Aston Martin #23 in the lane. Brake changes are so short and tire wear is not really an issue. Cadillac #31 has gotten one lap back but are still two laps behind.
Every single class is won by seconds as we see the #10 Acura hit the pit lane. Responsibilities fall on the pit crews and that has always been there in an endurance race. Kamui Kobayashi, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and more, could have done extremely well in Formula 1. Kobayashi did have some F1 starts, but here he is, getting into sports car races. Kobauashi is still going for it and his skill is top notch. He would've done extremely well in F1 and had been a world champion. Cadillac #01, the Ganassi car is in the lane.
Riley Motorsports has their #74 LMP3 car in the lane as well. In Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton has become one of the all-time greats, and Mercedes has had trouble in testing, sandbagging a bunch. Hamilton could be on top again. Red Bull could also be a factor and take some wins. We will see. David Hobbs was a driver and a broadcaster. Hobbs and Ken Squier broadcasted live at CBS the 1979 Daytona 500. Trying to put commentary on a taped race, was really tough. It was a hit in a snowstorm in February and had all the ingredients for an epic race.
Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison were scrapping in turn three on the last lap in those big, heavy, wide stock cars, and they crashed and down onto the flat, throwing fists at each other. Cale Yarborough's hair is flying all over the place as he is fighting the Allison brothers. Richard Petty won the race of course and on the cool down lap, Bobby Allison joins in the fight with his brother Donnie and Cale Yarborough. Brock Yates had several videotaped pieces on B roll that could not be used. He had visited Junior Johnson on the farm and David Hobbs did Daytona 500s from 1979-1995.
In 1990, Dale Earnhardt was about to win, and did not win and Derrike Cope did, and Hobbs was told by Dale Earnhardt's wife to get out of there. Dale Jarrett's win in 1993, and his mom wouldn't watch until the very end. He did NASCAR until 1995. Daytona, Michigan, Talladega, and more. David, we've enjoyed having you on this broadcast, mate. Thanks for your time, Hobbo. Racing royalty. David Hobbs. The one and the only! Renger van der Zande continues to lead the motor race over Oliver Jarvis, Jimmie Johnson, and Olivier Pla.
Magnussen is really going for it. Ganassi Racing got their Cadillac very late, but they have a fresh approach on the setup of the car as well. Ganassi's IMSA program continues to evolve. Alexander Sims at the wheel of the #4 Corvette C8.R, three laps down, has had a misfire. Bu the team continues to go for it. Alexander Sims is a great racing driver and he is working to mitigate his carbon footprint from air travel etc. The green Mercedes is for mother earth, the environment, solar energy and so forth. Nick Tandy is going for four straight Sebring victories, three with Porsche, and this would be his first race win with Corvette.
We look to see how the progress will work out with the #79 Porsche, currently in the hands of Cooper MacNeil. Simon Pagenaud is now into the #48 Cadillac. Jimmie Johnson has satisfied his minimum drive time and there's a debrief with crew chief Chad Knaus. The sister #31 AXR Cadillac will see Pipo Derani get into it. #31 has pace and they just need yellows to make up the laps they are down. It's been a pretty clean race so far. Another hour is about to be put on the board here. We'll be halfway home very soon. We thought there'd be a lot of drama at the Rolex 24, but the LMP3 cars made no trouble and they aren't giving people issues yet here either. But Sebring is pitch dark at night.
The LMP3 cars are lightweight and the corner speeds are incredible. But the LMP3 cars are having a very hard time handling the bumps. Oliver Askew pogoed all over the place. The LMP3 cars are built to a cost cap and so the suspension cannot be as advanced. We are fast approaching the halfway mark of this race. Scott Pruett was part of the one and the only Sebring victory for Chip Ganassi Racing. They never won GT Le Mans in the Ford GT here. Renger van der Zande is definitely into a rhythm here. Oliver Jarvis is next up followed by Olivier Pla and Alexander Rossi.
Spencer Pigot leads LMP3 for Riley Motorsports in the #74 car. Renger van der Zande leads by 20 seconds. PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports with the #52 car of Scott Huffaker, are going for a hat trick. Huffaker and company have won twice in this race. The weather is playing a factor. It is nice now to see cloud cover to cool the track and take the extremely blazing sunset out of Sunset Bend. The medium tire compounds have been what the GTLM teams have used, but the soft compounds might be a good choice for later this evening, although, we'll see because the tires are always a mystery on pressures, cambers and so forth.
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