4 Hour Endurance Race

[crash]

We had the final race of the 2018 WERC endurance schedule this weekend at Sears Point, and it couldn't have gone any better. On the pole, 1st in class, and 1st overall. We believe we also secured a class year end championship as well.

Our biggest competition were a pair of Audi R8s. I think they thought they had the field covered, but we had never seen those cars before, and I believe they seriously under estimated what a Factory Five GTM can do!

Carl started from the pole but quickly dropped back a couple of positions. The one Audi was particularly fast, but after he had pulled out about a 30 second lead we think they decided to conserve their car and just run whatever laps they needed to stay at about that gap. I saw this on the lap times and we just ran our laps and bided our time. They did have a large fuel tank, 30 gallons, but my guess is that they had no idea that we had a 40 gallon tank!

They made their first pit stop, changed two rear tires, and put their slower driver in. We were then much faster and pulled away with over a 1 lap lead. About the halfway mark we think they figured it out that we could do this race in one stop and they decided to put their fast driver back in. They changed tires again, but we noticed something strange. They only put two seven gallon jugs of fuel in the car. Apparently they thought there would be no competition here for them, and so they only brought enough fuel cans to fill their tank half way! So they had a long first stint, but wasted it thinking we would have to pit before they did. Then they also underestimated how long our stop would be. We did one stop with a driver change and a full fuel load and no tire change. Total time in the pits for our stop was 90 seconds.

They were now on kill mode, and 3 laps down. Their fast driver was turning laps that were 8-10 seconds a lap faster than us. We stuck to our strategy, went as fast as we could, but made sure there were no mistakes. As the Audi was passing us for the 2nd time he spun, but to give an idea of how fast he was, we only picked up 3 seconds that lap!

To make a long story short we were all biting our nails trying to figure out if the Audi had enough time to pass us for the win, but he didn't. In the end, after 4 hours of racing, they got to within 40 seconds of us, but just couldn't get it done. My guess is that if we ever see this car again, they will not under estimate us. We are fast, great at pit stops, and have good fuel economy. Everything we needed to beat a factory prepared race Audi R8 in an endurance race.

[beeman]

Great recap, Mike. FFR should be proud of you guys, I know we are. Would love to come out to a race some time. Is there a max fuel capacity in the rules?

[cgundermann]

Very cool story/strategy - thanks,

Chris

[crash]

Great recap, Mike. FFR should be proud of you guys, I know we are. Would love to come out to a race some time. Is there a max fuel capacity in the rules?

It's an interesting rule. What it says is that if you build to NASA rules you can build up to a little over 40 gallons of capacity. If you run a car that was built for another sanctioning body, then you have to run their rules, which means they were limited to whatever their pro series calls for. We believe the endurance package allows for roughly a 30 gallon tank. Truthfully, unless the car is built for it, it is pretty hard to fit 40+ gallons of fuel on board. This is almost ALWAYS an advantage for us.

[beeman]

So how does the car feel with 250 lbs of fuel vs 10 lbs? I know you have it in the right location though.

[crash]

So how does the car feel with 250 lbs of fuel vs 10 lbs? I know you have it in the right location though.

It's not too bad because of where it is, but the entire car is a bit heavy and feels like it. We were just joking that someday someone will do a cross section of the body and be able to match all the different color lines with the various paint jobs it has had over the years. There must be almost a half dozen now.

[AZREALTOR]

Great post! I love racing and really like hearing and reading about strategies used to win.

[Shoeless]

Thanks for the post and race recap. I really enjoy hearing the strategy and knowing the GTM is putting a beating on these other factor built cars.

[Cobra 61]

Azrealtor: For eight years my strategy was much like baseball. The four drivers were set up as follows: the lead driver started that was smart and could safely keep the car out of mayhem through traffic. Driver 2 would takeover and work on position. Driver 3 would be solid and and smart in taking care of equipment and taking notes on car behavior. Then the clean up driver 4: The fast guy that can make up lost time or catch the next guys. The one that can drive the car in any condition. "the clean up" batter. This yielded some very good successful finishes throughout the years. This race I changed the strategy: The clean up batter started first and positioned the team up front and gave up the car in the lead to the next driver. We had positioned ourselves managing the lead instead of waiting for the race to come to us or playing catch up at the end. I used this similar strategy for this years 25. and proved to be our best finish ever! It was primarily based on sticker tire performance and positioning best drivers on used tires in sync with our pit stops! I want to thank Mike Holland, Troy Lindstrom, Beau Borders, and Carl Rydquist for putting together the best driver team in the history of GTM competition!

A few historical milestones from the GTM all Volunteer team!

10 Years of competition: 10 Championships in 4 classes

11 25 hour races taken the checkers 9 times with only 2 DNF gearbox, crash