Sebring 12 Hours: Glory And Heartbreak.

Photo: Jim Hunter

It's a classic,  a $14.37  part failed and dropped the 31 Axis of Oversteer Porsche GTC from class leader  with less than 3 hours to 12 laps down.

Kuba admiring wielbłąd toe

As we had mentioned in or previous piece,  the race pace was there,  Kuba Giermaziak especially was just ripping on the old Florida concrete.  Time and again he would haul in the leaders.  Strategy was working well, CG as the "gent"driver was more than holding his own with not just other "gents" but with some of the pros.  All ws looking beyond out wildest expectations until the rear bumper cover came adrift.

Jamey Price caught the 31 dragging the bumper

CG was at the wheel when it happened but he has no idea how, he did not hit anyone and nobody hit him.   A mystery,  but the upshot was that the rear lights were damaged.   It turns out Porsche tail lights are notorious for popping out of their sockets with very little prodding.  Usually they get taped down,  for whatever reason, this was not done on the 31 car.  New clusters went in during a longish pit stop as the sun began to set.  Lucky at the time it was under a safety car period so it dropped us from P2 to P4.  Kuba, in attack mode dragged the car all the way back to P2 and pressuring Sean Edwards in P1.  Edwards made a mistake and went off leaving  the underdog Axis team in the lead and looking good.

It was good while it lasted but it was not to be, as darkness fell on Sebring, the officials demanded the team take care of the rear lights, both of which need to work under the regulations, only one of ours did so Kuba had to come in.
The NGT crew worked feverishly on the rear but the one light would just not come on.  In the end they found the brake pedal sensor had failed and somehow was just sending signal just to the one side.

Eventually the car was fired back up but our race was over.

Congratulations to Carlos, Kuba and Mario for a damn good effort and to Ramez and all at NGT for giving them such a good car.   Axis is gutted but Axis was also on TV leading the 12 hours of Sebring and that's just amazing.

The mystery of what actually happened to the rear bumper cover remains,  if you were at Sebring and can find us evidence solving said mystery,  we will send you one of these nifty Axis dog tags which one of our readers, Derick Stackpole surprised us with!

Cheers and thanks for all the messages of support,  especially the guys following on Pistoheads!

Congratulations to the winners in GTC, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Dion Von Moltke,  Cooper McNeil and Alex Job Racing.

Thanks to Andrés Bermudez for the pit reporting!

The tail pipe also came off at some point...

Stints

After 12 hours of Gas, Sweat and Tears