Porsche GT3 Challenge at VIR

Photo: Tim Coop/Flickr

The IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama held its penultimate rounds at Virginia International Raceway on September 14-15.

The race marked the return to action of Carlos Gomez in the Axis of Oversteer GT3, newly patched up after it was "viciously attacked by a wall" in Montreal this past June.

Carlos had to come to terms with a track he had never driven on in a GT3.   After, as he put it, "being humbled" by the track in the first practice sessions he  found a massive 3 seconds a lap in qualifying with help from NGT's Ramez Wahab and his coach, Team Falken's Bryan Sellers.   I'm sure he had a peek at James Clay's VIR track guide too.

But I digress,  here is his qualifying lap.

As a testament to how competitive the Porsche GT3 Challenge is, that time of 1:54.9 only put him in P10 for the start! The kids up front were just awesome with series champion Sean Johnston just putting the hammer down in Race 1 and literally pounding the field into submission with lap after lap in the 1:54 sec range. He won by almost 30 seconds, impressive.

While the "kids" were running amuck up front, Carlos spent the race in a death match with NGT-Momo team Mate Eduardo Cisneros.
As you can see VIR is not a place where you can pass easily. The struggle continues for about 24 minutes until Cisneros, probably out of tire grip, falls off at the "NASCAR" corner.  Carlos ended the race in P7.

In Porsche GT3 Challenge, the starting grid for the second race is determined by the best lap time during race 1 so CG started in P9 with Eduardo Cisneros in P8.

The two quickly pass Mike Mills in the Effort Racing/God.tv car at the start.  Mills did not take that kindly and on lap two tries an unlikely, given his position, dive bomb into turn 1. Does not work and I suspect, it was red mist all over when he tried an even more unlikely dive, from miles back into the turn before "Oak Tree".  Trying to go into a corner 30mph faster than anyone else takes a lot of faith but, as they say, physics gets you every time and Mills ends up into the tires.
 Gomez finishes the race in P5 from P9.



The whole story of the race is told in the official Porsche Challenge video put together by Leo and JF from Drive.

The final appointment of the season will be at Road Atlanta in support of the Petit le Mans on October 17-20.

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:

Axis of Cup!

Fantastic news: CG, after vanquishing the ranks of PCA club racing, has decided it's time to play on a different playground, with a bigger toy.

I'm very excited to announce Carlos will be running at least 4 races of the 2011 IMSA Patron GT3 Cup Challenge, for our European readers, it is the US version of Porsche Supercup.

To make the whole thing even sweeter, the debut will be June 10-12 2011, in the support race to the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Canada in Montral. How cool is that? We are planning on being in the (at least the supercup) paddock and handing CG his first bottle of celebratory champagne...regardless of where he finishes!

The car, run by TRG/Speedsport will have Capital Managers / Axis of Oversteer livery but there is still plenty of sponsorship space available. If your company is interested in the exposure opportunities on track, television (SpeedTV) and online, via IMSA and through Axis of Oversteer.com. we will be happy to work with you, drop us a note.

Here are the dates. Aside from Montreal, most races run as support to the American Le Mans Series races. Axis fans, now you know who to cheer for if you are attending!

Date                         race 
June 10-12, 2011             Montreal Grand Prix
July 8-9, 2011               LimeRock Park
July 22-24, 2011             Mosport International Raceway
August 18-20, 2011           Road America
September 16-18, 2011        Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway*
September 29-30, 2011        Road Atlanta (Petit LeMans)*

*=either one of the two

So what is a sales brochure for a 2011 GT3 cup like? Have a look after the jump.



My 11 Final Nl Appr 09-17-10

Old Cup Cars never die...

Sometimes, when rules allow it, they even go rally. In France, Spain, Portugal and Germany if I'm not mistaken, Porsche GT3 Cup cars, along with Ferrari Challenge can take part in national championship rallies in the GT Plus class.

Below is a clip of a 996 cup testing and doing shock setup in France. Check out that piece of undulating road, if your shocks work there...

Don't worry, Rihanna stops 1:30 in then it's all good, more than good actually.



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