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.......
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