Porsche GT3 Challenge: Laguna Seca

The Porsche IMSA GT3 Challenge was at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca For rounds 5 and 6 of the season.  Our own CG, Carlos Gomez drove the Axis of Oversteer  NGT GT3 to  two top 10 finishes.  CG was sixth (from twelfth on the grid!) in the first race and eighth in the second.

Round 5 Results
Round 6 Results

Not that you would know the Axis car was even there from the Drive produced race summary,  I guess that in Montreal, CG will either have to win or crash into both Madison AND Melanie Snow at the same time to be deemed worthy of inclusion!


Luckily, CG has his own Go Pro so let's live some portions of the race with him.
Here is the start of race 1. The car in front and to the right is Mike Mills, the "entry" from another motorsports blog you might know, SpeedSportLife.

As you can see,  making up ground in evenly prepared cars is very hard unless someone ahed makes a mistake so qualifying position becomes key.  

Carlos has said that one of the biggest challenges for him is to get that best qualifying lap early before the tires go away.   On Friday, drivers qualify and race on the same tires so if you end up doing 15 or more laps in search of your time, you will pay for it in later on.

CG decided to stop and sit on his his time after just 7 laps, when he was P8 but later got bumped to P12 by drivers who stayed out longer.

We pick up the action after a full course yellow. Mike Mills passes with a Kobayashi style punt into turn 2 but Carlos makes a great clean move on him after the corkscrew.

From then on it's a good battle with TruSpeed's Phil Fogg Jr..   Carlos has a go at him in turn 2 but outbrakes himself with Phil going back under him.  Eventuelly CG gets it just right.






Race two's grid is determined by race lap times in race 1 and everyone starts on fresh tires.   Here is the start:

Carlos grids P7 but gets a poor start, then lets  Bryce Miller who was faster but had to start from the back due to an off in race 1, by.   No good deed goes unpunished as Mills takes advantage ans sneaks though.



Race 2 ended with a very NASCAR style white/checker situation, a one lap shoot-out. Carlos is P9 when the green drops, he makes one pass but alost loses it by being long in turn 11. this sets up a drag race to the line which he won by 0.02sec!



The next round is in Montreal as a support for the Canadian Grand Prix, come out and cheer for the Axis!

All the photos in this article are by Jim Hunter, winner of the Axis of Beers Awesome engraved beer mug, Cheers Jim!

Here's the official wrap: