The Sounds of Sebring.

Tomorrow you'll be able to tune into Fox Sports to follow the 2015 12 Hours of Sebring.  You'll get live timing and scoring, updates on Twitter and Facebook,  Before most of us were born, before there was an internet, before podcasting, before there was live TV for motor racing,  fans would either read about races or perhaps be lucky enough to score one of these audio documentaries on vinyl from Riverside Records.

Riverside was a jazz label in the 50s but its founder, Bill Grauer was a racing fan who produced these incredible recordings.

Given how attention span has decreased over the years, you might find it hard to listen to the whole thing: the 1956 edition is an hour long, the 1957 an hour and a half.  That would be a shame but,  if it's just too much, at least browse them,  there are some real gems here.  

Moss and Z.A-D

The 1956 edition, for example,  starts with a description of Stirling Moss:

"As a driver, Moss' style can described as erratic but terribly fast.  He sits well back in the car, arms outstretched to the wheel.  He's quite spectacular, honking his horn frequently at cars that do not pull over fast enough for him to pass, waving at spectators and flagmen.   In easier races he is inclined to aim for photographers who get too close on corners, all in fun of course, and while they bare him no malice, they learned to honor his right to the road and take their pictures from behind the fences."

Momo in Slo-Mo

OK, Drive got us at the title...  but it's a great video to watch too.  Enjoy it

Meanwhile, at Sebring...

Matteo Malucelli was rear ended once again, this time it was his fault. After a tankslapper sent him into the tires at the exit of turn one, Malucelli impulsively re enters the track at the exit of a blind corner, right on the racing line. Chaos ensues.

Ben Keating's Viper also had a bit of an overheating problem...



And David Ostella was attacked by the axis of understeer...

Sebring: Update with 6Hour remaining

The Axis car is currently sitting in the front group in GTC class,  as far up as P1, no lower than P4 for the past two hours.    Amazing result so far,    I think we surpassed what out friends at Jalopnik gave us a chance to,  They were sure we would have crashed about an hour ago.

Still a huge amount of time to go,  absolutely anything can and probably will happen.  Punctures...Allan McNish....an angry Corvette...  I kid Allan, I kid..

Sebring 12 Hour: The Night Before The Big Day

Photo: Andrés Bermudez

Qualifying was a trip, so many awesome drivers. I guess Porsche not supporting GT class and this being the final 12hr under the ALMS flag really made this the deepest GTC field ever. Two drivers, Bleekemolen and Edwards actually qualified with the same exact time down to the 1/1000th of a second.

Pace on the Axis car is actually better than the P10 starting position would suggest, Kuba was within a 10th of Sean Edward's time but Sebring is tricky and he ended up maybe overdriving on the lap when the tires were best. For the race though the pace is there.

Stints will be about 60-65 minutes of green laps. Tires last about one and a half stints so the plan is to change them when gassing up. Single stints for the drivers since it takes 25 secs for a driver change and about 35 for fuel and tires.

Start is Saturday at 10:45 AM ET. Race will stream live (for countries outside the US) on ALMS.com

Axis Qualifies P10 in Class for the 2013 Twelve Hours Of Sebring

Photo:Jim Hunter

This year the American Le Mans Series GT Challenge class, for Porsche GT3 Cup cars, is stacked with some of the best of the best of Porsche 911 drivers in the world.   Names like  Edwards, Lally, Bleekemolen, Estre, Faulkner, Pumpelly. Maassen.  Aces all.      In this shark pool jumps Team Axis in the number 31 car with our CG,  Carlos Gomez along with pros Kuba Giermaziak and Mario Farnbacher.

The top 9 qualifiers in class were all within 9/10th of a second of each other,  Kuba qualified the Axis car 1.6 seconds off the pace in P10.    

Practice had shown it would have been unrealistic to shoot for a higher position on the grid so the team, run by NGT Racing, decided to concentrate on making the car a comfortable as possible to drive for the grueling 12 hours.    That meant finding a good front-rear balance sacrificing some outright speed for more  even tire wear during the stints.

12 hours on the choppy, brutal concrete of Sebring is like 24 hours of wear and tear on the machines and the men on any other track.  

The objective is to survive the big day tomorrow... better than the other guys!   Go Axis.

Photo: Jamey Price

GTC Qualifying unofficial

1.  Andy Lally                 Dempsey / Del Piero Racing                2:05.446
2.  Jeroen Bleekemolen   Weathertech / Alex Job Racing            2:05.747
3.  Sean Edwards            Momo / NGT                                        2:05.747
4.  Spencer Pumpelly      Venezuela / Flying Lizards                   2:05.765
5.  Damien Faulkner        Florida Lottery / TRG                          2:05.910
6.  Jan Heylen                  Hertz / JDX Racing                             2:05.936
7.  Alexandre Imperatori  Flying Lizards                                      2:05.059
8. Andrew Davis             Dempsey- Del Piero Racing                 2:06.219
9. Kevin Estre                  BePositive.org/ TRG                            2:06.246
10. Kuba Giermaziak         Axis Of Oversteer / NGT                     2:07.057
11. Lawson Aschenbach   Competition Motorsports                       2:07.336

Audi Shocker: Fast or Crash

Photo: MSM/Jim Sykes/Jake Galstad

Veteran Allan McNish had a rather embarrassing crash in his R18 e-Tron on the very first lap of practice this morning at Sebring. Knowing Audi they probably had to slave away for like 10-15 minutes to totally rebuild that car...

One Audi out but the other R18 had the best time in the session:


Prototype 1 (P1) Top 3:
• Benoit Treluyer – No. 1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro – 1:45.908 (127.129 mph)
• Lucas Luhr – No. 6 Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03c – 1:46.648 (126.247 mph)
• Chris Dyson – No. 16 Dyson Racing Lola B12/60-Mazda – 1:49.373 (123.102 mph)

Prototype 2 (P2) Top 3:
• Simon Pagenaud – No. 551 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b – 1:53.482 (118.644 mph)
• Tom Kimber-Smith – No. 41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN-Nissan – 1:53.539 (118.585 mph)
• Marino Franchitti – No. 552 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b – 1:54.577 (117.510 mph)

Grand Touring (GT) Top 3:
• Stefan Mucke – No. 97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 – 2:00.786 (111.470 mph)
• Oliver Gavin – No. 4 Compuware Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6 – 2:00.923 (111.344 mph)
• Antonio Garcia – No. 3 Compuware Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6 – 2:00.992 (111.280 mph)

Prototype Challenge presented by Continental Tire (PC) Top 3:
• Pierre Kaffer – No. 81 DragonSpeed Mishumotors ORECA FLM09 – 1:55.935 (116.134 mph)
• Bruno Junqueira – No. 9 RSR Racing ORECA FLM09 – 1:57.084 (114.994 mph)
• Stefan Johansson – No. 8 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA FLM09 – 1:57.404 (114.681 mph)

GT Challenge (GTC) Tire Top 3:
• Spencer Pumpelly – No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – 2:05.687 (107.123 mph)
• Jeroen Bleekemolen – No. 22 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – 2:05.745 (107.074 mph)
• Kevin Estre – No. 68 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – 2:06.189 (106.697 mph)

The Axis GTC car was P8 with a 2:06.919 lap by Kuba Giermaziak.   Super tight field in GTC.

Postcard From Sebring

Kuba Giermaziak jumps out of the number 31 Axis of Oversteer / Capital Managers / NGT Porsche GT3-GTC,  Mario Farnbacher hops in to continue the first practice session at Sebring.

Axis Attacks The Final ALMS 12 Hour of Sebring

Illustration courtesy of Andy Blackmore/Spotterguides.com

Kuba Giermaziak

The 61st edition of the Twelve Hour of Sebring will be the final one under the auspices of the American Le Mans Series ahead of the merger, in 2014, with Grand Am.

Who will you cheer for, BMW, Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari, Aston, Viper?  lots to choose in GT but in GTC, the class for Porsche GT3 Cup cars, we say cheer for 31!  

CG will be attacking the bumpy Florida track along with two young guns, from Poland, Jakub "Kuba" Giermaziak and from Germany, Mario Farnbacher.

Mario Farnbacher

Kuba at 22 years of age has 3 years experience in the super competitive Porsche Supercup, where he place third in the 2011 season with VERVA Racing,  as well as open wheel experience in Formula Renault 2.0 and Euro Formula 3.

At 20, Mario Farnbacher has been breathing racing fumes from a very early age, from a racing family which includes his older brother, SRT Viper driver, Dominik,  Mario raced  ADAC-GT-Masters in Germany in 2012.

Kuba and Mario along with Henrique Cisneros were GTC class
winners at the 2012 Petit Le Mans.

Carlos Gomez, of couse you know if you follow Axis.

Carlos Gomez with Diego Mejia

Communications between a Colombian, a Pole and a German should be highly amusing,  I'm not worried,  they all are fluent in the language of speed and the great Ramez Wahab, the man behind NGT Motorsports will give Axis a great car.

The 12 Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida will be broadcast in the US on Fox News Sports News /Speed on the 16th at 10:30 AM ET.

On the web it will be streamed, qualifying on the 15th at 1:05 PM ET and the race on the 16th starting at 10:30 AM ET.   Tune into ALMS.COMhttp://www.alms.com for details.

Full Spotter guide by Andy Balckmore

Ready for testing on Wednesday!

11 hours and 56 minutes and then this....

It's not like it hasn't happened before at the 12 Hour of Sebring but once again GT's were bump and grinding on the last laps.

UPDATE: It was not Beretta who hit Hand but Bruni, as our readers quickly clarified (thanks!). This puts Hand in totally different light. Bruni too, I mean what the hell was he doing dive-bombing the race leader while many laps down?

This clip has slightly better video quality than some that have been online and you can see a bit more. I'm not sure why Joey Hand was leaving the door open so much since he was defending with worn tires. He did it twice, when he was passed the first time by Beretta and again when he got hit by him a lap later.

On Beretta's side I don't understand why with what looked like a faster car he chose that spot to make his dodgy second move. Even more puzzling is why he was so slow on the final turn the lap prior, did the Krohn Ferrari ahead stop at the apex (or one of the 24 apexes in that turn...)?

Hand's red mist powered comeback was pretty cool, looks like he has his DTM mindset all figured out. He might have saved himself the "I was ready to put him in the tires" comment afterwards though.

Curbs...

photo by Camden Thrasher

they are meant to be used!

Turn 10

Turn 10 at Sebring is the place for fans at Sebring, where all the action is including occasional flashing and I'm not referring to headlights on the race cars...

Have a look at this long piece by John Sutherland.

"The 12 Hours of Sebring is America's oldest running sports car race, with 2012 marking the 60th running of this event. But Sebring is more than a race. It is a yearly gathering of fans that celebrate their passion for the sport and the common bond that creates lasting friendships. It is indeed, a race like no other."