HSR Sebring – 29th November - 2nd December 2007

HSR’s last race of the season took place at Sebring and David Hinton’s Predator Performance had no less than twelve cars to look after during a very busy weekend. I guess everyone wants to do the last race of the season.

“Our” cars were the usual Jagermeister RSR, now fondly referred to within the team as “Old Faithful”, due to that fact that she’s run every practice, qualifying, sprint and enduro possible in HSR and SVRA since May, without failing once. What a car. Well built, Gordon Friedman.

Secondly, we had a real 1974 RS 3.0, into which a new RSR spec. engine of 3.5-liters had been inserted. I was looking forward to racing this RS, as, in Classic Endurance Racing in Europe, this is the go-fast setup. An RSR spec. engine in a (comparatively!) narrow bodied RS is the hot ticket in the GT class in CER. Of course, you are limited to a three liter engine over there but, having gone into a few corners behind such an RS, I’ve been somewhat frustrated when they’ve accelerated away from our genuine 3.0 RSR!

Finally, George Tuma had also brought his ex-Jack Boxstrom 1961 Aston Martin DB4 along for practice only, and Sigi and Philip Brunn, plus George and myself all took advantage and did a few laps on Thursday, the test day. Philip is a youngster amongst us, still being in his twenties, though hugely experienced in some very fast cars, such as 956s and 962s. After his few laps, he returned to say that the brakes were almost non-existent, despite my telling him that they were really quite good for a car built in the 1960s!

Sigi and I both drove the RS 3.0 but a 370 horsepower engine in it merely showed up the deficiencies of what is really a very original, non-mucked-about-with street car and we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and parked it.

This left the dear old RSR and George, Philip and Sigi all got to drive it, Philip having a very good night race until being passed right at the end under a full course yellow, which the organizers failed to spot. Never mind.

On Saturday, Philip took the old girl out again for a sprint race but after just three laps he was back in the pits to say that the clutch was gone. Further dismantling of the gearbox showed that the mounting in the bellhousing for the clutch throw out operating mechanism had broken away and so, finally, the old RSR was a non-starter for the four-hour vintage race on Sunday.

During Saturday, David and Sharon, our neighbors, and Su, my wife, came to visit. David and Sharon had never been to a race meeting before, particularly a vintage one. They were “blown away” by the cars and the atmosphere.

At lunchtime on the Saturday, the organizers allowed “ordinary” cars, belonging to the spectators, out for three laps of the circuit and so I co-opted Sharon’s Nissan Maxima and we all four went around the circuit, with me pointing out the correct lines around the bends. Amazingly, the organizers allowed us to get a reasonable turn of speed on and so it went very quiet in the Nissan as we headed into turns 1 and 17! Sharon remarked afterwards that the next time she took the Nissan in for a service, she was going to tell the mechanic: “Brakes were a bit soft going into Turn One at Sebring.” (Which they were!)

So the season is over. I’ve had a wonderful time. Thank you George, David, Larry, Scotty, Nick and all at Predator Performance. (This feels like the plug all the NASCAR winners mumble in their post-race briefing.) Thanks also to Sigi Brunn and his boys for their help whilst in Europe.

Next year we plan on doing a full Classic Endurance Racing season in Europe so, hopefully, we’ll be racing at Barcelona, Monza, Spa, Le Mans, Nurburgring and Silverstone and, in America we’ll be back at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and, hopefully, Road America. I’m off to get some more track tuition, probably with master teacher Jim Pace. How much better can it get?