[Ryan]

All I can Say is WOW! Sebring is definitely my favorite track and should be put on everyone’s bucket list. Weekend started of rough, came around and had a blast, then ended with a bang, literally. Flew out on my anniversary and as a parting gift my wife gave me the flu. Ran a temp over 101 all weekend, but manage to drive, but couldn’t manage to drink one beer all weekend!
DE Practices
This was first race weekend in new car. Never been to Sebring so only experience I had was watching posted videos and playing Rfactor Stoked for my first session! Go out first lap first corner, and back end snap oversteers! WTF, couldn’t understand why as I was going real easy. Get to second turn, same thing, but have to drive 4 off to save it. OK, confidence shaken and came into paddock after limping around for the rest of the lap. Figured it might be a suspension issue (1/2 hour before I went out Charlie was hooking up my swaybars…they had disconnected them for corner balancing). Nothing wrong with suspension…turns out they had just resealed the track and my tires had become coated in tar and had zero traction. First day everyone was pulling baseball size chunks of tar out of their wheel wells. Put on new hoosiers and softened rear bar. Second session car handled fine but now transmission grinding… synchros probably bad. Had to pause a bit between shifts to get in gear (or as I did in the race, just had to keep pushing till it went in. ) Getting comfortable with track
Race practice
As day goes on the car and driver start to feel good. Recognize my car is slowest in class on the straights. Everyone is pulling me, even G cars! This sux, but nothing I can do about it. Times actually starting going up throughout the day!!! Not because of driving, but because of track position. I got stuck behind 2 back marker J class GT3 Drovers. Everytime I’d pass them in braking or corner, they would just fly by me on the straights then hold me up again! Fun race comes and they line up in front of me. I know I have have no chance of getting by them and racing the other guys in my class. Only solace I had was there were a few other H cars which got stuck behind them also, so they felt my frustration too.
Qualifying
Ok game on. Spoke with Josh(Jose), and best advice he gave me was go out angry. Boy did I ever. So far hadn’t felt I had a good run. In the Fun race had ridiculously slow times of 2:35 because of the J class cars. Line up for qualifying behind two of them. My only hope was to get by them quickly somehow. People get used to the first lap running under yellow, but it the case of qualifying you go out hot. My hope was the GT3 guys would be sitting on their asses as we pulled out and I could beat them to T1. Well almost worked. They went out slowly, but caught on as me and another 993 split him and tried to pass on both and left and right sides. Nothin doing, he put his foot to the floor and beat us to T1. The other 993 was faster in the straight so pulled in front of me and behind the GT3 going into T1. Screw that, as he pulled on line I pulled offline where he was and outbroke him into T1. Cool, now just the GT3 guy. I out broke him into T3 but he took the inside line so I was on the outside. He bobbled and pussed out trying to pass a boxster in the turn. I followed the boxster, then slowly crept over and chopped him a bit coming out of 5. Now I was side by side with the boxster with GT3 dude stuck behind us. I eased off the gas a bit to keep him behind for a while as me and the boxster had the track blocked. As we got far enough down the straight, put the foot to the floor, then took the inside line into T7 with deep threshold braking. Mission accomplished! I knew I had enough Turns and braking before we got to the next big straight he had no chance of outpowering me. Now I just had to get by these two 964s G cars (Antonio and Omar) to get some clear track. Took me ½ lap to catch and pass Antonio, and another lap of back and forth with Omar until I finally got by. They didn’t make it easy. Both their cars are way faster than mine (pulled me by 8-10 car lengths on the back straight, WTF), so had to outbrake and corner them to get by. Finally with some free track came together and felt I was putting down so decent qualifying times.
Quali results came out and was please. Dropped seven seconds down to a 2:28.2. H class is kind split. There are the 964s and 993s, then the newer caymans and 996s. The newer cars are about 2-3 seconds faster. There was a cayman and a 996 infront with times of 2:24.7 and 2:25. So the rest of us were fighting for 3rd. There were 3 993s in the race of which we all qualified within 1/10th of a second, then 3 964s which qualified within 3/10ths of us. We had a group of 6 cars in H all lined up together for the race. This was going to be FUN!


Quali Video:
http://vimeo.com/36351230

Race 1
I came to realization that my car was the least powerful out there in class. As it turns out, the entire weekend I never passed anyone under power always under threshold braking. Had to hope for a good run out of a corner, so I would lose less on the straight, then out brake them into the next corner. Made for an exciting weekend. Many times people would just motor by me, jump online infront of me, brake early, then think I would give them the corner. Nope. As soon as they came online, I would go offline, brake later, and keep the position.
Racetime…Get a decent start given my power handicap. Didn’t gain nor lose a position until T3. A GTS5 914 had muscled his way thru a couple cars, but ended up taking out a 964 cup a few cars in front of me right before T3. Right lane got by a bit better so dropped back. Raced until T15 when they dropped the double yellow because of the prior incident. Coming out of T16 2 other H class cars going blowing by me and another 993. I felt like the dude in the video “I was 7th”. Screw that! Me, then the other 993, both took our positions back. The other cars didn’t object as I waved may hand at them. Note to first time racers…get a Radio! BMAN was manning mine. After a lap or 2 of double yellow, the green was dropped while I was still on the back straight. BMAN did an awesome job and I passed 1 H class car and caught up to another because they didn’t have radios! Phew, got back the position I lost from the earlier T3 wreck. Now it was just racing. There were 6 H cars now running in a tight group pretty much the whole race fighting for that 3rd place. I couldn’t get the car in gear going into T17 and lost a position and dropped back pretty far. Battled back and took 2 positions in H. Came in 4th. Was real happy considering I was fighting for 3rd and my car wouldn’t shift for shit and was getting pulled on the straights by all the other H cars.
Sprint 1 Video:
http://vimeo.com/36353313

Race 2
Don’t really remember much, except was battling for 3rd when the motor blew going down the back straight on about the 6th lap. Half way down RPMs dropped, then nothing. Killed the motor and pulled in just past T17. Race done. Looks like Rod bolt let loose on the #5 cylinder and punched a nice size hole in the case. I was more bummed I couldn’t finish the race than having to replace the motor. Plus car was out for the enduro which would have been a blast. Instead of being low class in the group like the sprints, we were top class and could have qualified 3rd or 4th overall. Have video, but nothing to see as camera fell over after a few laps.

Enduro
Omar offered to let me codrove with him, so at least I could get some more racing in. Very nice of him. All ready to jump in the car when he got black flagged. Turns out a 944 hit him in the rear quarter panel and the scrutes saw it and race was over for us before I could jump in.

Thanks to the Intersport guys for their support and BMAN for running my radio. We had a good group of drovers there. Even with all the problems, great weekend. Will be going back next year with a stronger motor and better trans to grab that “3rd place”

[Casey914]

Sounds like a great time! Been following along on ustream and on IMSA's site for the last couple of days! Mike and Harris have been giving me updates.

[HoodPin]

Bummer to hear about the motor during your first race weekend. But sounds like you're otherwise bitten now. Hopefully you'll get the car back and racing before Sebring next year.

[realroadrage]

LOL, Ryan the "momentum car" driver.

[N Fotouhi]

I just chukle reading the post. This ain't DE and what you describe is very typical. Good luck getting the car back together. If I were you, I would consider running in G. I do not think that H is a good place for a heavy 993.

[Jazzbass]

Good write up, Ryan. You really are true race car driver already - tons of excuses in there. "My car is the slowest" "Back markers holding me up" "I threw a rod through my case"

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Jazzbass

Good write up, Ryan. You really are true race car driver already - tons of excuses in there. "My car is the slowest" "Back markers holding me up" "I threw a rod through my case"

LOL. You forgot the "I had the flu" also

[BlackTalon]

I want to see video of the cars behind him when the motor let loose I'll be their blogs are fairly entertaining

[FrankyV]

Ryan, very impressive driving for your first full race weekend, at a brand new track no less. Didn't know you had the flu, I thought you looked like shite because of all the hangovers that were going around.

[LPM911]

nice write up, and sorry about the motor.

i agree that you should bring your car to G. I think G is the place for 993/964, plus there is a good local G competitors that will likely be at the track whenever you go, which makes DEs fun too. although that being said, there are a few H class 964s in the local club too. but as you mentioned, it seems the "newer" cars have the edge there.

either way, glad you are out there racing finally. and also glad you finally see whats like to be behind a drover who can't drive the turns but zooms by on the straights. pedaling these "older" cars can be hard work...