[Fot] Sebring 12 Hour, part 1

[Henry Frye]

What an adventure. I spent last Wednesday thru Saturday night with Mike
Jackson, Bob Wismer and Glen Efinger at the Sebring 12 Hour race.

SVRA gets a whopping 3 sessions over the weekend, one of them a 1 hour
enduro. Mike contacts me a couple months ago and asks if I want to
co-drive the TR3 with him in the enduro, how can I say no?

I was really looking forward to the event for a couple of reasons, the
biggest being I have been chasing the Glen Efinger prepared cars since I
started racing, and I couldn't believe I was getting a chance to drive
one.

I had never driven a TR3 racecar, never driven the track. I knew I would
be hopeless if I didn't prepare somehow for my 20 or so minutes in the
seat. Thanks to the computer game GT Legends and a bit of searching on
the Internet to download the track at Sebring, I was able to 'drive' the
track to get a feel for it. Then a chat with JK informs me where the
bumpy bits are. Finally a U-Tube in-car video puts it all together. I am
as ready as I will ever be.

The plan is this. On the one and only practice/qualifying session, Mike
takes the car out for 3 laps. One to warm up the tires, one hot lap,
then come in. We do a drivers switch, and I get a few laps to
familiarize myself with the car and the track. That plan goes off
without a hitch. Well, there was that little off by the hairpin, but,
well, never mind.

The following day after a little brake adjusting, we are ready for the
enduro. Plan is for Mike to take the green flag, run to halftime and
come in. I will take the checker. Minor flaw in the plan. Mother Nature
has other ideas.

The green flag waives with a little liquid sunshine falling from the
sky. Within 3 laps the flag in the tower goes from black to red. The
rain is torrential, and lightning is flashing all around us. The cars
make it back to the pits, the tow trucks are busy picking up bashed up
race cars, and soon the word is given, we are done.

The storm wreaks havoc in the pits. We weather out the storm with no
major disaster. With a schedule as tight it is, we know we are done. No
make-up race is going to happen.

Mike offers to have me drive the feature. I was really surprised, and am
very grateful.

continued