What happened to the Sebring Race Recap??
Well, in a modern-day version of “My dog ate my homework”, due to a technology mishap, the post which Nick had worked on for several weeks in between car repairs, was obliterated and all the bits fell out. It’s a shame, it was well-written and a nice recap.
So instead, I’ll (Melanie) try to put together a shorter recap just to finish it off. You’ll be happy to know we’ve adjusted our blog process so that technology misfortune doesn’t happen again. 🙁So instead of the racer’s perspective you’ll get the racer’s wife’s perspective! 😀
THURSDAY -
We had gone on vacation to Florida earlier in the week and on Thursday transitioned to “racing mode” - traveled into the Sebring area and got settled into our hotel, Seven Sebring Raceway Hotel. We conveniently had a view of the pool! Oh, and what else is that out the window? Turn 7 of the Sebring International Raceway, in Sebring Florida.
The event for the weekend is a ChampCar Endurance Series race, with the Open Throttle Racing team. The race is scheduled to start at 6pm Saturday and conclude at 8am Sunday. That’s right - they’ll be racing all night! Nick’s car has 4 drivers that will be trading off throughout the race. Nick had never been to this track before but it was near the top of his "bucket list" of tracks that he'd always wanted to drive.
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| View from Seven Sebring Raceway Hotel |
FRIDAY -
Friday was a practice day, thankfully in the daylight hours, since Nick hasn’t been to the track before. He had spent a lot of time in the iRacing simulator set up in our shop in the weeks before the event. You can practice in various conditions - wet, dry, rain, dark, etc and I think all his time in the sim was worth it! We got to take a parade lap around the track in our rental car before the official practice started, got a nice picture of our hotel room from the track, too!
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| Nick's shirt for practice day was ... a picture of a driver from the Rolex24 who had some important information to relay to a specific BMW driver he was racing against at the time. Ironic Nick thought he'd wear it for practice day, when he's driving a BMW. |
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| All geared up, ready to go drive Sebring for the first time! |
There wasn’t a whole lot of practice time available Friday, but Nick was able to get about 8 laps in during what were pretty ideal conditions. It was daylight and dry, although a bit warm (it’s central Florida after all).
SATURDAY - RACE DAY!
Saturday started off pretty strange! Usually on a race weekend we’re at the track early, getting things prepped or getting on track early in the day. But, since this race wasn’t scheduled to START until 6pm, we had some downtime Saturday morning to just rest and prepare for the long night ahead. Finally, finally, FINALLY it was time to make the “long” drive to the track paddock (maybe a half mile?). In typical Florida fashion, most of the day was nice and swampy, and in the late afternoon / evening a storm popped up.
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| It's Florida, it rains. But this is A LOT OF RAIN. |
This wasn’t really a surprise, but it was a LOT of rain, and the storm just seemed to camp over the racetrack. There are two problems with this – there are rain tires, but when it looks like a hurricane is coming down, there is a visibility problem that can occur with water spraying up on the track and that is a safety concern that can stop the race. We’ve seen it happen rarely, but it does happen. The second problem is lightning! Of course the racecar drivers are not out in the lightning, since they are in their cars, but there are a lot of people outside during a race: the corner workers who staff the flag stations, the team support on pit road, and the pit marshalls (event staff who watch and make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to). These people have to be safe from lightning, so at Sebring they must stop racing if there is lightning within 8 miles, and can’t restart until there’s no lightning for 30 minutes within 8 miles. Each track has different rules, but some variation of this 30-minute delay is pretty common.
About 7:15pm, the cars got out onto the track, with the race officially starting a little over one hour late. WIth the lightning delay that kept getting extended due to the storm continuing in the area, the starting activities felt a bit more hectic than usual!
The first driver, Abby L, got into the car for the start and she’s got a pretty hot foot! She got the team into first place and kept it there until it was Nick’s turn to get in, about 9:15pm.
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| Pit box for the Open Throttle Racing team |
When Nick got into the car, it was dark, raining a bit, the track was still wet from the massive downpour earlier, he’d only driven about 8 laps on the track, and the car was still in first place. He was a little nervous about how fast he would be. OK, a LOT nervous. Could he keep the team’s momentum going, or would he be embarrassingly slow? Would he even be able to stay on the track? Looking back, Nick says it was just about the most nervous he’d ever felt getting into a car to race.
I watched a few laps, monitoring the timing and scoring app to see how his lap times compared to the other driver’s. Actually, not bad, just a little bit slower! She’s been to this track before so he wasn’t expecting to beat her times, especially not in his first stint. He kept the team in first place and I headed off to take some pictures from our hotel room balcony!
(Side story bonus: at Nick’s first ChampCar race, at Road America in October 2020, I was so excited to get pictures of him around that course from various places. It was fall, the trees were beautifully colorful, it was like being in a national park that just happened to have racecars driving through it. It was the second day of the endurance race (it was split into two days), so he’d already been through one successful day. He was supposed to be in the car for 2 hours, so I wandered around all over the track, only to return to find out that he’d lasted only about 45 minutes and had to get out of the car. He in fact had to be helped out of the car and over the pit wall, as he couldn’t walk. He was in so much pain that he couldn’t drive anymore. Spoiler alert - he’d partially torn his achilles heel earlier in the day helping to push a car out of the garage, but thought it was “just a bruise.” We didn’t know the extent of his injury until we returned home and I demanded he visit the doctor instead of going to work the next day. I say all this to explain that I have a bit of anxiety about leaving the pit / paddock area while he’s in the car!)
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| Look, there's Nick! In the blurry green car |
By the time I got to the hotel balcony a few minutes later, Nick had found his groove. I checked his lap times, this lap was faster. A personal best, great! And for about the next few laps, every time he completed a lap, he got a NEW personal best. It was really interesting to watch him zoom around the track from this perspective. I got familiar enough with the car’s sound that I could tell when it was going under the bridge a ways before turn 7. His stint completed about 11pm, with his team still in first place!
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| Nick started in lap 32. First lap was a 3:03, then in each of the next 6 laps he kept getting faster. Go Nick! |
When he got out of the car, he was a little tired but his response was: “HOLY CRAP, THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!”
Then, after some snacks of a protein bar and some other track food, he needed to get some rest. He’d be going back out again in the early morning. I set an alarm on my phone and we napped in the car for about an hour or so.
Nick got back into the car about 3:20am and drove until around 5am. Car’s still in first place! Of everyone on his team, Nick was the only one who had never driven at Sebring before. Some of them had many races there. So he was really happy to be able to contribute to the team’s success!
After he finished his second stint, he stayed around the pit area, in case the final driver needed to exit for whatever reason, so there would be a replacement driver available. He captured this amazing sunrise over Sebring International Raceway, with the car in first place in class by 42 laps!
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| Sunrise over Sebring |
After Nick’s stint was over, I had gone back to our hotel room and slept for a couple of hours, setting my alarm for shortly before the race finished. I had to drive us to the airport later that day so I needed some rest for that trip, 😀. I was able to get a great picture of one of the final laps of the race. Checking the race monitor – still in first place! Amazing!
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| The race is nearing its end, I got this one final shot from our balcony as the green car keeps counting up the laps. |
Then I went back to pit lane to see the checkered flag. Open Throttle Racing’s cars came in first AND second place, and they crossed the finish line together while the team cheered from the top of pit lane.
FIRST PLACE! Celebrating with the team was great, even though everyone was tired because they’d been up all night. Nick said later:
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What an incredible 12 hours and 2 minutes(after the lightning delay)! Our 4 driver team ended the race with the #66 Open Throttle Racing BMW E46 in first place by 40 some laps! Last night was an incredible experience that I won't be forgetting anytime soon. You want to know the real crazy thing? If they said, "Hey, we're going to make up the hour and 20 minutes we missed, would you drive the car?" I wouldn't think twice before suiting back up, lol. This is a drug like no other!
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| The first place team! The 4 drivers and the crew chief. |
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| Drivers, crew, and team owner Mike, getting the trophy! |
It didn’t hit Nick until the next day when we were almost home from the airport, that he WON A RACE! He’s gotten some podiums before, but had never actually come in first place.
Thanks to Mike Gorman and the crew at Open Throttle Racing for this amazing experience! That was a spectacular ending to our summer vacation!
….and then we began the long trek home. Nick got a nap in at the Orlando airport, while waiting for our flight. Delayed, of course, due to weather. We did make it home the day after the race!
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| In the middle of the Orlando airport, on a VERY busy Sunday evening, with lots of flights delayed due to a storm. Yep, he's asleep. |
~M
