Sebring 2014

[gatordad]

This should get the blood boiling during the cold winter!

http://sebringraceway.com/

[Kristof]

Thinking about camping for one or two nights as the hotel where we stayed in the past years is completely sold out.
Can't find any other decent hotel in a reasonable distance so we might crash into Walmart, buy some campinggear and join the CA-camp.  Have been thinking about renting a motorhome but that's too much hassle to pick it up, clean it, bring it back in on Monday ...

Just need to figure out a way to be able to load the batteries of my cameras, laptop and phone.

[Chris24]

In the past, I asked nicely at the Aston team in the paddock and they plugged my camera battery charger in to their power in a spare socket. Phone you should be able to charge in the car. Lap top ask one of the local campers that has an RV.

[Canada Phil]

Thinking about camping for one or two nights as the hotel where we stayed in the past years is completely sold out.
Can't find any other decent hotel in a reasonable distance so we might crash into Walmart, buy some campinggear and join the CA-camp.  Have been thinking about renting a motorhome but that's too much hassle to pick it up, clean it, bring it back in on Monday ...

Just need to figure out a way to be able to load the batteries of my cameras, laptop and phone.

Hi Dottore,
               You know you are welcome at Camp CA. Bring a Belgian flag to add to Pidge's collection. Is Johnny attending this year? if so he better bring a Dutch flag.
Phil

[Kristof]

Hi Dottore,
               You know you are welcome at Camp CA. Bring a Belgian flag to add to Pidge's collection. Is Johnny attending this year? if so he better bring a Dutch flag.
Phil

Hi Phil,

Johnny will be there too, we'll be booking most of the trip this afternoon. 

[Matt Harper]

Please forgive my hijacking of this thread.
My understanding is that only a limited number of people are coming over for the race this year - but that you will be stopping off for a lager shandy at The Fish on Fire before heading south to the track.

Any and/or all of you are reminded of my wife's insatiable appetite for PG Tips tea bags. If you have room for tea bags in your luggage, I will compensate you with Beer on Fire and hot-wings by way of trade. The more tea bags I harvest, the more brownie points I earn with the old bag, so I am hugely motivated to reward those who might help me out.
Thanks in advance and I look forward to seeing you Mon/Tues of race week at the Foffer - and later in the week in Green Park.

[Canada Phil]

Hi Matt,
           So far we have Geoff Tom George Kristof  Johnny and ME for Monday evening. probably 7:30 by the time they get through the airport.   Will be good to see you again.
Phil

[Kristof]

Jumping on a plane in 11 hours ... bring it on !!

[gatordad]

You have a PM...get in touch with me asap...I have a solution to your issue at Sebring.

[hgb]

Did anyone from here post this video named "Porsche 919 and Audi R18 LMP1 Cars at Sebring" ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyM79Nq9cUA

The voice at 38 secs into the video and again at 48 secs sounds familiar. Have fun and thanks a lot and enjoy. The 919 sounds a bit disappointing -
or is it just too fast. The Z4 noise is nice but that won't be at LM.

[Kristof]

That's it for Sebring 2014 ...

Good to see Tom, Phil, Geoff, Chris, some new and more familiar faces again.  Thursday was quite chilly and cold in the morning & night practice, Friday and Saturday nice Sebring weather as we're used to.  

Eventful race with 11 full course cautions, at a certain point I wanted t ask my money back ... Didn't see much of the accidents though, guess I was at the wrong place at the wrong time during the whole race.  At the end of the day, there were too many cautions, too many bad calls, too long cautions ... pretty f*cked up if you ask me.   When we were at the back of the Ulmann straight, cars were literally stopping there behind the SC, never seen such a thing in the days of ALMS.  That last caution of 30 minutes made me sick, why do you need such a long caution when there's a car who went off half a mile from the track ?  Apparently to get that bloody turtle in front again, so Na$crap can claim a tight finish and one of their turtles is at the top spot of the podium.  I felt sick about it !   Apparently they f*cked up again with penalty's that have been given to the wrong cars, guess they'll never learn.  What really struck me on Thursday and Friday was the lack of attendance; much less than other years, many open spots and even during the race on Saturday I managed to drive the car around and park where I wanted ... never been able to do that before.  Sportscar fans aren't really interested in turtles, bop and other sh*t, those 500 who went to Grand Am before won't make a difference either.  

If this is the way it has to go with TSCC, this might have been my last Sebring, maybe it's time to focus on other events like Bonneville, Pikes Peak, Rennsport Reunion and Pebble Beach just to name a few ...  Don't get me wrong, I had a great weekend - as always - but the racing between the fcc's didn't get to me like in the past.

[Grand_Fromage]

Yes the series seems to be running like a well oiled shambles.

Bad penalty calls, inept and haphazard fire marshalling, too quick to send out SC or kept out too long because they were ill equipped to remove stricken cars from the track promptly.

I love Sebring and I'm disappointed with what it has become.

[Boorish Grobian]

We could all see this coming.  I had lunch the other day with a good friend who used to work for one of the Grand-Am teams.  He quit the sport because he could see the direction sportscar racing here in North America was going.
Like I've said before, the best thing that could happen is the whole thing go tits up, the France family finally get tired of blowing money on it, and realize they don't know a f**k*ng thing about sportscar racing, and let it die.  Perhaps then someone who actually knows what the hell they're doing will resurrect sportscar racing in America.
Until that happens, I've gone to my last sportscar race over here.
Dottore, there's still some great racing over here, its just that you have to look away from all the over pimped, over hyped made for TV crap.  Take in a NHRA meeting, or go see the USAC Silver Crown, and Sprinters.  Pikes, and Bonney are must see's.  Or catch one of the big desert off-road races like the Baja.
Fax

[Steve Pyro]

I'll agree with Fax (again).

In my opinion, niche motorsports are what is good about the US now.

When I was at Sebring in 2007, I went up to Gainesville on the Sunday to take in the NHRA Gatornationals - absolutely superb. Some pics here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/13111644@N00/sets/72157625341393264/

And, the Holy Grail for me, I managed to get to Bonneville Speed Week in 2012.  Some pics here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/13111644@N00/sets/72157631424099364/

I'm not sure I will bother to get over to Sebring for the 12 Hours again unless there's a dramatic change in the line up / regs.
 

[Stu]

I love those photo's Steve especially the IR ones. I've always wanted to do Pikes Peak and Speed week which I'm sure when I looked before used to be pretty close to each other calendar wise but they're about a month apart this year. Also Pikes Peak being all tarmac now has taken the shine of it slightly for me but one day perhaps.