Historic Sportscar Racing: Pistons and Props, part 2

 

Open Throttle Race 1

HSR Pistons and Props

Sebring International Raceway

February 12-15, 2026

Part 2: Sat & Sun

Saturday

I woke up bright and early a little before 7 on Saturday….. So much for sleeping in, lol.  So we decided to have a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant, then head to the track.  With a couple of hours before my group was to be on track for our final qualifying session, I decided to take the opportunity to check out all the planes up close and personal. Those things were so cool, I can't really describe what it was like having full access to those beautiful birds. I mean, you could walk right up to them and touch them if you wanted, no ropes, the only “security” was the two guys working grid, who basically told me just don’t get run over by any of the race cars, lol.  

My favorite plane, an Army bi-plane built in the 30's

After spending a good amount of time drooling over the planes, I took a slow walk back through the paddock to the Open Throttle base camp. Since we were near the far end, it was a very long walk with some amazing scenery, many of the cars racing there had some serious historic pedigrees. We’re talking former Rolex 24 winning cars, LeMans winners, and more than a few IMSA season champions, plus even older stuff, I think I was lucky to not be dehydrated from all the salivating I was doing, lol.  Eventually, I made it back to the OTR paddock spot, and set about getting my mind ready for qualifying, then it was time to suit up again, and go out for qualifying.  I don’t know if it was the cooler air from the 10:30 am session time, or just my boosted self confidence, but I ran a blistering fast lap of 2:29.646, a full second better than my fast lap from Friday’s race!  That left me with even more confidence, and I was actually thinking maybe I would be able to hang with a couple of the slower cars in our group during the race, which unfortunately wasn’t for another 3 hours.  Time for a nap! 

Just kidding, but we did take advantage of the excellent concession stand and had a good, nutritious lunch. After that, I literally just chilled in the rental car with the AC cranked and tried to relax, as it was rather toasty and humid that day.  I was expecting a similar start to Saturday’s race as what we had on Friday, but with my success earlier in qualifying, I thought maybe I could hang onto the pack for the majority of the 20 minute race, and maybe even pick up a couple of positions.  However, when the green flew, a couple of cars further up in the grid didn’t get very good starts, resulting in the entire field being bunched up going into turn 1.  I found myself three wide with a former IMSA TCR racecar and an older Porsche IMSA car…. IT WAS AWESOME!  You just have to elevate all your senses in that sort of situation, and not think about all the bad things that could happen, just focus on holding your line and be ready for someone else not to.  Between turn 1 and 3, the TCR car pulled in front (barely, I was only a few inches off his bumper), leaving me and a classic Porsche race car side by side through turns 3&5, which are probably the two tightest corners on the entire track. WE got through T3 just fine, but then in the kink they call T4, he got a little loose and I reacted by keeping my car a little off line going towards T5, which resulted in me losing all my momentum in T5, and causing cars to stack up behind me, but the HSR drivers are a highly skilled group, and the cars behind me got around with no issues on the following straight. I stayed in contact with the pack until part way down the back straight, those cars just had too much power for me to hang with them on such a long straight section of track. So, again, my plan became to just race myself, try to get consistent lap times while also lowering them. Then part way through the second lap disaster struck…. Turn 9 is a lefthanded sweeper about half way between turns 7&10, and to be fast through that section you need to just barely kiss the curb with your left side tires. The reason is simple: if you're too far off the curb, you are driving extra distance that you don’t need to, therefore making your lap take longer. Secondly, this curb is rather high, it sticks up several inches from the track surface, and getting too much of it will really upset the car, leading to loss of momentum and possibly damaging the car.  Well, for some reason, on this lap, I cut that curve too tightly and hit way too much of the curbing. This really jolted the car, and caused the electronics to “blip off” like they had during Thursday’s practice, when everything came back on, I could no longer shift gears and was stuck in second. I was able to slowly limp back to the pits, and Charlie tried a re-flash of the computer, like what had worked on Thursday, but this time, no luck. In fact, when we started the car up after the reset, the transmission was completely locked up, and we couldn’t move it at all. Team owner, Mike Gorman was driving the other car, a BMW 235i R, and brought it into the pits to let me drive it for the remainder of the race. Unfortunately, my big butt couldn’t fit in the seat that was in that car, so I was out of luck.  This was obviously NOT the way I wanted my race to end, but, honestly, that’s how racing goes fairly often.  To say I was dejected after the race was a major understatement. I feel horrible when my own cars break, to be behind the wheel of someone else’s car,  even if nothing I had done that contributed directly to the breakdown, made me feel ten times as bad.  Thankfully, Zack Barfield got my mind pointed back in the right direction by doing a data review with me. That got me thinking “forward” instead of dwelling on what had just happened on track, and helped give me another shot of confidence, because the data from my qualifying session was really good. I was very consistent, and all my braking events for the major corners looked amazing.  While we were going over data, Charlie got to work swapping the seat from Cherry into “Raptor”, so I could race it in Sunday’s race, and therefore still get my track time.  Did I mention Saturday also happened to be Valentine’s Day? While I was sulking from breaking the car, and doing the data review, plus trying to help where I could, my awesome wife had found us a very nice Peruvian place on the circle in downtown Sebring to enjoy a nice supper.  What had been kind of a bummer day, turned into a very nice evening, with authentic Peruvian entertainment, and of course the food!  Then it was time to get some rest before the final race on Sunday morning.

Both OTR cars going into T1 at Sebring. I'm in "Cherry", the E92 M3 on the right, 

team owner, Mike Gorman is behind the wheel of "Raptor", the 235i R on the left.

Sunday

My race was at 9:30 on Sunday, but I wanted to arrive plenty early to try and familiarize myself with my new ride. “Raptor” is a factory built BMW 235i R racecar, it has stamps from the factory in Germany where it was built all over the substantial roll cage, as well as a Pirelli World Challenge tech sticker from 2018 on the drivers side “A” pillar.  Sitting in the car while adjusting my belts and making sure the mirrors were right felt very comfortable, and put my nerves of being thrown into another car I had never driven at literally the last minute at ease.  When the OTR crew arrived, I suited up, then climbed inside the car, Charlie helped me get my bearings for all the controls, and let me know what the optimal shift point was along with where the water and oil temps needed to be, then it was time to head to grid. For this final race, my mindset was all about turning laps and coming to grips with how yet another new chassis handled best on the Sebring track. Figuring out how several different platforms, all with very different handling characteristics, like to be driven on the historic track, should be invaluable to me in September when I take the Thunder Roadster there for NASA Championships. It’s sure to handle completely different than anything else, yet, from my experiences with now 4 different cars, it will also share some characteristics with each of the OTR cars I’ve raced there.  And, as I was about to find out, the BMW F22(hence the name Raptor) platform is the closest thing yet to handling like a GTR.  

While sitting on grid, I began to realize that I might enjoy driving this car, I was so comfortable in it that if I had closed my eyes, I might have fallen asleep. Then, during the pace lap, while warming tires and getting a feel for the acceleration, braking and steering of the car, I started to get very excited about the next 20 minutes!  I was very patient on the start, not wanting to get involved with any battles the other cars may have, and also wanting to slowly ease into pushing the car, unfortunately, we had a 2 lap full course caution starting at the end of the first lap.  Oh well, more time to adjust to the car under a “controlled” pace, and make sure the tires and brakes were properly warmed up. When they pulled the yellow before lap 4, I was ready to GO!  That first green lap was a 2:39, which I learned the basics of how the car handled, and what gears I should be in, along with the braking capabilities. On laps 5&6, I pushed it a little bit farther, bringing my times for those laps down to a 2:35 & 2:34 respectively, while also learning even more about how the car liked to slide around the corners, allowing me to keep more momentum, and how absolutely great the brakes were on it. Unfortunately, while on the back straight of lap 6, i got a call over the radio that the white flag was out, meaning I only had one more lap to really push the car and have fun!  So, as I came to the last corner, my main thought was just carry as much speed through it as I could, to get a good run down the front straight, setting myself up for a fast lap on the last one. As I came off the corner, My only thought became “PUSH! Grip it and rip it!”  I carried a ton more speed through T1, then nailed T3 better than I had all weekend, along with a perfect little slide exiting T5, and I was on pace for a blistering lap a third of the way through. Coming up on T7, I had learned that you could brake extremely deep in this car, and it wouldn’t get upset, so I pushed my braking point deeper than I had all weekend, while still trailing off the brakes at the same point, allowing me to also nail T7 better than I probably ever have.  Next up was the section of track that I struggle with the most turns 10 through 16, if you mess one of those corners up, it’s really hard to recover any time. As with T5, I got into 10 with enough speed that I had a perfect little slide on exit, and was like “OH YEAH!”. Then I focused on T13, and tried to brake in the same spot as I had been, but much lighter on the pedal, and again, on exit, the rear end had just the slightest little slide to it, and off I went toward Bishop’s Bend, a double apex left handed sweeper leading into the deceptively tight and slightly off camber turn 15. It literally felt like I was gliding a couple inches above the track as I went through there, then I absolutely nailed T15, along with 16, leading onto the long back straight with plenty of time to get in my head. But I kept focused on trying to brake later, and not use as much brake going into the final corner… I still over slowed, and also ran a little wider line than I should have, but it was much improved, and I came to the checkers with a BLISTERING 2:32.2 lap time, nearly 2.5 seconds faster than the lap before!  In fact, that lap was the fastest the car had ran all weekend!  Team owner, Mike Gorman, had driven it all day Friday and Saturday, and the best he could manage was a 2:32.9, so in only 5 green flag laps, I bested the cars owner by 7 tenths of a second, despite him having 5 full sessions in the car.  As good as that lap was, I honestly think it’s capable of turning laps in the 2:30’s, I NEED to find that out first hand!  

As always, it was an amazing weekend hanging out with the Open Throttle Racing crew, in fact, I have come to think of them as extended family! I can not wait until the next time out with them at the end of June, and for any of my racer friends reading this that are curious about doing an “arrive&drive” endurance weekend, I can’t recommend Open Throttle enough. Get in touch with them, you won’t regret it!  

Next up for Fast Farmer Autosport will be my first NASA Great Lakes weekend of the year at Mid Ohio in April, time to find out if my Frankensteined engine is up to snuff!

Historic Sportscar Racing Pistons and Props, pt1

 Open Throttle Race 1

HSR Pistons and Props

Sebring International Raceway

February 12-15, 2026

Part 1: Wed-Fri

Wednesday

We arrived in Sebring early Wednesday afternoon to get our registration all in order. Since I had never driven with the Historic Sportscar Racing organization before, I had to pick up my “hard card” (the id card that allows competitors and crew to get into the event) in person instead of it being mailed to me.  I didn’t know how long that process would take, so I wanted to get there as early as we could. Turns out, it really didn’t add much to the registration process at all, and we were all done in about 5 minutes.  I still needed to take my helmet and head & neck restraint to tech so they could make sure it was up to date, and met their requirements.  Again, the whole process took about 5 minutes, so I didn’t need to worry, but it’s better to be safe than sorry in that type of situation.  One thing that made me take a second and go “whoa” was walking up to the tech location and seeing a semi trailer with IMSA logos all over it. That was just the first of several “wow” moments that I never imagined would happen.  After getting my gear checked out, we headed over to Wine Country Motorsports, just outside the track to get a communication system installed in my new helmet.  Unfortunately, there was only one guy working in the shop that afternoon, so he wasn’t able to get it done that day, but promised I would have it before my first session at 10:30 the next morning.  With that, we went and checked into the hotel, and just chilled out until my test day driver's meeting at 4….. 

Turns out, I got a little too relaxed, and when I looked at my phone to see if it was time to head over to the track, it said 4:05.  Whoops!  Luckily, they had a second driver’s meeting at 7:30 the next morning, so I was ok, just a little annoyed with myself.  I still wanted to go find where we would be paddocked, and see if I could help any with getting the cars teched. Those bright green Open Throttle BMW’s are quite easy to find, so it didn’t take long to locate the team’s trailer. When I got there, Charlie Crilly already had my car for the weekend, a 2009 E92 M3 by the name of Cherry, sitting at tech waiting to be inspected.  It was great getting to see Charlie again, the whole team feels like family to me, so I’m always happy to see them after some time away.  There wasn’t really much I could do to help the tech/setting up process, so we didn’t hang around too long. But, since I had never driven this particular car before, I did get in the car for a quick test fitting and familiarization session, so I would have an idea of how everything worked in the morning. With that done, it was time to head to Cowpoke’s to grab a very good steak, then start to focus on the next day.

Thursday

Thursday was the scheduled practice day, and I was looking forward to becoming familiar with my car, since I had never driven Cherry before. My first session wasn’t until 10:30, but, since I missed the Wednesday afternoon driver’s meeting, I had to attend the one at 7:30 Thursday morning.   After the meeting, I had plenty of time to have a granola bar for breakfast, and get all my gear situated in the trailer so it would be easier to keep track of everything and get dressed quickly. It also meant Melanie had plenty of time to retrieve my helmet, complete with new comms installed!  Finally after what seemed like FOREVER, the time came to suit up and get in the car for my first practice session. After getting all strapped in, and my helmet connected to the car, I had Charlie go over all the controls one more time, just to be sure I remembered everything, of course, I hadn’t remembered everything, but most of it was retained from the night before.  Sitting on grid and looking at all the eye candy preparing to share the track with me, I couldn’t help but feel some nerves. Having never driven this type of car, I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of handling, and absolutely didn’t want to make a mistake that could lead to damaging any of those extremely valuable vintage racecars.  I didn’t need to worry, because as I found out, Cherry is an absolute joy to drive. She handles quite predictably, has plenty of speed, and brakes to spare. As long as you keep your head, you won’t have anything to worry about driving that car.  Having survived the first practice with no issues, and gaining some confidence in the car, my plan for the next session was to push the car a little bit harder, but still not all out. 

 Unfortunately, Sebring lived up to its well deserved reputation as one of the toughest tracks on earth in terms of beating up cars. The first time I really pushed the car through turn 1, I hit one of the famous bumps on exit, causing some sort of electrical glitch. All of the electrical components in the interior of the car blacked out for a second, then popped back on. I thought everything was fine until I hit the straight between turn 5 and turn 7. For some reason, I was hitting the rev limiter even though I was nowhere near the 7,500 rpm shift point. After analyzing the gauges closely, I noticed that the tach had reset itself so the redline was now at 7,000 rpm’s instead of 8,200, meaning I had to shift gears a full 1,000 rpm’s sooner than what I should have been to avoid the limiter. Once I got to a section of clear track where I could describe my problem, I radioed Charlie, and he had me come into the pits.  Have I mentioned this guy is a genius when it comes to fixing racecars? He took one look in the car and immediately knew what needed to be done to fix it. Turns out that electrical “blip” had reset the car's computer back into a more conservative “tune”, and all we needed to do was shut it off, reflash the computer, then fire it back up and we were good to go!  I headed back out ready to push the car for the remaining few laps, and boy, I had a blast that first lap, then I came through turn 1 at speed again, and nailed that same bump….. Yep, everything blipped out for a second and came back on just like before. Except this time as I exited turn 5, I realized I couldn’t shift gears!  Everything on the dash looked normal, but the shift paddles had no effect on the transmission, i even tried moving the shifter into “D” and back to sport, and bumping it up and down the gears, but nothing would work.  So I was stuck in second gear having to travers ⅔ of the Sebring track before getting back to pit road, let me tell you that back straight is LONG when you can’t go faster than 65mph. This time, it was determined that the blip had caused the car to enter “limp mode”, and by the time Charlie had its brains straightened back out, the session was over. Back in the paddock, Charlie checked everything over that could cause the issues we were seeing, and along with a possible weak alternator, he discovered the transmission fluid was slightly low. 

Having all the issues fixed, I was ready to really lean on the car for the third session. That final practice session was huge for my confidence in myself and the car. Cherry performed flawlessly, and I wasn’t bad either. I ran four laps right in the middle of the session separated by just 2 tenths of a second, that type of consistency is what I’m always looking for to tell me I’m in tune with both the car and the track.  Having experienced a great final session on track, I was more excited than nervous about how Friday would play out. The only thing left for Thursday was the race driver’s meeting at 4:30, then it was time to get a good meal, and relax while attending a Ross Bentley webinar before getting to bed at a decent time. We were the second group on track Friday morning at 8:30 for our first of 2 qualifying sessions to determine Friday afternoon’s 1 hour “endurance” race. 

Friday

I woke up ready to run on Friday morning, which is always a great feeling!  We got to the track just after 7, and I almost immediately suited up, I was READY.  Then in the first qualifying session, I went out and proved how ready I was by running a 2 minute and 30 second lap, backed up by a 2:31.  That was over 2 seconds quicker than what I had ran on Thursday!  We weren't sure if the set of tires on the car would make it through the endurance race in the afternoon, so decided to put the new set on prior to the second qualifying session. Since we were scrubbing in new tires, the second session would be a “throw away” in terms of setting a fast lap, but was still useful in terms of getting more laps on the track and learning how the other cars behaved.  We had over 3 hours between Q2 and the race, so I was actually able to eat a somewhat normal meal for lunch, while taking in the NASCAR classics qualifying session from atop the pit garages. You haven’t lived until you experience a pack of 8-10 90’s to early 10’s NASCAR’s going down the Sebring front straight at full throttle! The sound is unbelievable, but even more so are the vibrations you feel coming through the building, it is something else!  Having calmed down from the “NASCAR experience”, it was time to make sure I understood the pit stop rules for our race. Being an “endurance” race (I don’t consider an hour long race much of an enduro, but whatever….), we had to make a pit stop for fuel sometime during the first 40 minutes. Making this more complicated was the rule that the driver had to be out of the car and over the pit wall before fueling could begin.  Once we had that all straightened out, I still had plenty of time to just relax and do some visualization, to mentally prepare myself. 

Being in a car that was sorely outclassed by all the former professional, factory built racecars, my strategy for the race was to just focus on my own driving, and try to be consistent while lowering my lap times. At the start, the field in front of me took off and by the time we got to turn 7, I was well behind them. This allowed me to settle into a very nice rhythm pretty quickly and I really had a great time sharing the track with some very cool cars. Then it was time for our 5 minute pit stop.  It was a non event, I pulled into the stall, shut the car off, got out and hopped over the wall, took my helmet off and grabbed a couple drinks of water, then reversed the process. The timing worked out almost perfectly, by the time I was strapped back in, it was time to go, so I fired the car back up and headed back out on track.  After just one lap, I was immediately into a nice rhythm, running 5 of the next 6 laps consistently in the high 2:31’s and low 2:32’s, with a fast one towards the end of that stretch nearly identical to my fast qualifying time.  It was a great way to end my first official HSR race, I proved to myself that I belonged on a track in a big time atmosphere, alongside very skilled drivers in extremely valuable machines.  It was a huge boost for my self confidence!  After the race, I had just enough time to change into shorts before the highlight event of the weekend, the parade of vintage aircraft from the active airport to the HSR grid area.  There were ten vintage planes built from the 30’s through the 60’s, about half were former military, a couple were vintage air racers/acrobatic planes, and then there were a few just “plane” planes.  They taxied these planes in single file at full throttle down the Sebring back straight from the airport to the grid, and our paddock spot was situated perfectly to watch.  Being somewhat of an aircraft nerd, I thought it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen!  After the planes were situated, it was time for the HSR “family reunion”, a fancy name for drinks and dinner. They actually had some pretty good food, and plenty of carbonated, non-alcoholic beverages. It was also a nice time to chat with some of the other participants, and meet some of the pilots, it was very cool.  With our first session for Saturday not scheduled until 10:30, we were able to end the night by enjoying some popcorn while watching a movie without worrying about how early I went to sleep, and it also meant I could sleep in slightly on Saturday morning.  To be continued.......