Ah, Sebring at the end of February... Pleasantly balmy weather, smell of orange blossom as we approach the circuit, laid back, easy sign on with the girls at HSR registration in Sebring’s new registration facility and then roll on through into the paddock and there’s Predator Racing’s trailers, awnings outstretched, beneath which nestle BMWs, Porsches and Jaguars, plus Farrell Preston’s TVR Griffith, now with newly expanded exhausts looking very threatening!

Other runners and riders were Bob with his black Porsche 356 and new black BMW CSL, looking very smart and out for it’s first showing. Larry Ligas had not only his XKE Jaguar Roadster (or “E” Type as I still insist on calling it!) but also his older XKE Coupe, into which he had recently inserted a new engine. That sold in a heartbeat to a dealer and lucky will be the racer who buys it! Larry builds the fastest XKEs in America and probably, in the World.

George Tuma had his Jagermeister 3.6 liter RSR and had kindly invited me to share it with him for the weekend, specifically for the three hour enduro on the Saturday afternoon. After December’s outing, during which the engine and gearbox had both failed, Kevin Wheeler had rebuilt both, getting 340 horsepower at the rear wheels! Not bad for an engine that is strangled by a street single throttle barrel induction system. Additionally, the car had benefited from a complete repaint and looked magnificent.

I had arrived on Thursday at Midday, right in the middle of testing and so went out around 3-ish to try the RSR out. I made just half a lap before the black flags were waving and it was all back to the paddock. Cold tires and a cold brain had claimed a victim at the bridge leading onto the pit straight first time around. Last session of the day, I got in around seven laps and the car felt very good but I’m still learning Sebring, despite having raced there several times before. It’s trickier than it looks at first acquaintance and, at 3.2 miles in length, takes some getting used to. Turn one, a blind left hander at the end of the pit straight takes sheer nerve. It’s one of those “How late can I brake?” jobs and you have to brake, shift into third gear and turn in instinctively, aiming for a traffic cone perched on top of the tall railings on your right. As long as you keep close to the wall, you will find that suddenly, the exit comes into view and you appear to be going the right way! It’s here that the concrete of the front straight (old aircraft runway) becomes a narrow ribbon of asphalt with grass on both sides. The last bit of old concrete has some big bumps and my right leg took a couple of whacks at each exit.

You then funnel into a short straight, grabbing fourth gear and accelerating before braking hard, shifting back down into third and turning hard left into turn two, which then switches into a tight right hander, bit of a straight, stay over to the right and commit to a late turn in to the next left hander. Exit this and the track swings to the right under a bridge and it’s then flat out and through the gears through a great right hand sweeper, which brings you down to the hairpin at the back of the hotel. Great watching place this as you have to drive to the left hand edge of the track, braking late and hard and shifting into second gear. Lots of spins! Get the turn in right and you run over rumble strips on first the left hand side and then the right hand side of the track. The track bends around to the left again and you find yourself changing up into fifth gear again before braking hard into another right hand corner, though this one is faster than the hairpin and can be taken in third gear. Once again the bumpiness of this track shows up and the back of the car jumps around as the wheels scrabble for grip on the exit. Immediately following this corner is a double apex left, taken flat out while accelerating hard and upshifting again. Stay in the middle of the track and then arrow down into the final third gear right hander and this one brings you onto one of the fastest parts of the track, where there is a double apex left taken flat in fourth gear. Two notes here: Years ago, I was knocked into the fence here whilst driving a March GTP car by a Nissan, who was attempting to overtake me in between the two apexes. I was not amused but... and then on Saturday afternoon in the race I conned myself into believing that these two apexes could be taken flat in fifth gear.... No, they can’t! God, I thought the car would never stop spinning but eventually it did and, as I found myself facing the right direction and had kept the engine going, I eased it into first gear and off we went again! Bit of luck, that...

And so, just as my arms were beginning to tell me that they were getting tired, here was the starter waving the white flag for one more lap and it was over. Great stuff! How I enjoy long distance Sports/GT racing.

When I got the results sheet, I was pleased to see that we’d finished twentieth overall out of sixty-five starters and second in class. On top of that, David Hinton, Scooter Gabel and Ross Bluestein took their RSR 3-liter to second in their class and 14th overall, whilst Farrell Preston and Scotty Pheil won their class in the TVR (twenty second overall) and Byron deFoor and Larry Ligas had driven Byron’s BMW CSL into a fourth in class, despite a failing transmission. That morning, incidentally, Larry had turned a personal best in a Group 5 Sprint race, turning a 2:16.8 in his XKE to take second place behind Scooter Gabel in his ’74 IROC RSR. Hell of a race. By the end of the second lap, the third placed car was the length of the back straight behind them!

So an excellent weekend all around. No crashes, one BMW engine needing attention but nothing serious and another transmission also needing fixing. Road Atlanta Walter Mitty next! Never been there, hear that it’s a daunting place....