120 Hours of Sebring

Click on image to view GalleryDid you really think it was a 12 hour race? Seriously, putting the long winter aside, if you’re an active member of a Sebring bound ALMS race team, you’re looking at a minimum of seven 18-hour days. You wake up by the car, you eat by the car… and if no one is looking, you sleep under the car. And after six long days, you get to go racing.

Yet everyone involved… and I do mean everyone, revels in it. They flock to it likes moths to a candle… milling around, tired and whipped, yet with a nervous energy likened only to that of junkies in needle park… just before they’re about to score a fix.

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The year was 1984 and I was in awe

Click on image to view GalleryThe 12 Hours of Sebring was the first motor sports race I ever saw in person.  The year was 1984 and I was in awe of the speed, the crowd, the entire Sebring experience.

26 years later very little at Sebring has changed.   The speed of the cars and the talent of the drivers is truly amazing.  The loyalty and size of the crowd is inspiring.  And the fact that so little has changed in the past quarter century, other than a new pit lane structure, is in some ways endearing, but in far more ways staggering.  That is a a topic for a blog which I will address in the very near future.

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SEEEEEEBBRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

Click on image to view GalleryEvery January, Doug “dawg” Shuler would post one word to the old ALMS forum:  SEEEEEEBBRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!!  With that briefest of reads, the winter’s cold and snow and the shitty xmas presents of socks and boxers and neckties are immediately forgotten and the nose imagines the scent of orange blossoms over synthetic oil, strip steaks grilling at Vanessa’s, and tyre rubber chunking  in turn one. Ach - I never was much with words. As old Warner Wolf would say, let’s go to the videotape…

Stupidity reigns and an opportunity is lost at Sebring.

The Audi team was nowhere to be found at Sebring during the race week for the classic 12 Hour endurance race. Oh, they were in Florida alright - rested and ready, as a matter of fact - as they had tested at Homestead Miami Speedway the previous week. And they were also going to participate in two days of testing at Sebring Monday and Tuesday (the 22nd & 23rd) of this week with Patron-Highcroft Racing, Corvette Racing and the Sebring-winning Peugeot team.

What’s wrong with this picture? Plenty.

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SCi Five Questions: Scott Sharp

I’m not sure Scott Sharp looked up the definition of the word “extreme” when he named his new American Le Mans Series race team. Talk about being careful what you wish for. In the last five months Scott’s life has become, in a word, EXTREME. Teaming up with the American Le Mans Series’ new presenting sponsor, Tequila Patrón, Scott formed Extreme Speed Motorsports, a two Ferrari effort that will compete in the Series’ highly competitive GT division. To say Scott’s been going flat out ever since would be an understatement.

Lucky for us, we caught up with Scott and put him on the hot seat for SCi’s Five Questions.

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March Madness... NOT About A Ball And A Hoop

Click to view full gallery by Rick Dole, Regis Lefebure and John ThawleyIf it’s March, we must be getting close to the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 58th running of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida. At 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, March 17th, spectators can enter the historic raceway in preparation for the 12-hour classic that starts at 10:30 a.m. ET on Saturday, March 20th. The opening race of the 2010 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón features the largest Sebring entry in four years.

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Sports Car Insider - Five Questions With Allan McNish.

If you truly love sports car endurance racing, then you most likely are a fan of our guest for Five Questions,  Allan McNish. Racing since the age of 11, McNish can lay claim to achievements not shared by many others. Having started in karting, he then progressed through the junior formula, Formula 3, Formula 3000 en route to Sportscar racing, Le Mans 24 Hours and F1. Allan has twice been winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours, three times winner of the 12 Hours of Sebring, three times American Le Mans Series Champion and he is a four time winner of Petit Le Mans. And, as you’ll find out, he’s not done.

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Sports Car Insider's 2009 Special Recognition Awards

As the year winds down, I thought it would be a great time to look back at 2008 and give a nod to those in the American Le Mans that contributed to another great year of sports car racing’s legacy. As the old saying goes, these are the good old days. And while there are hundreds of stories and moments that made up the year, I thought these were a few items worth special recognition.

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