After a relatively short off season, the team headed to the historic Sebring International Raceway in Sebring Florida last week. After a non eventful 22hr drive, we arrived at the track and set up last Wednesday with unofficial practice starting on Thursday. Looking at the entry list of 34 total cars for RD1, Austin’s PRO 1500 class would feature the cream of the crop. It was filled with full time drivers from IMSA, F4, USF 2000 just to name a few, Most of these guys have million dollar budgets and are in a car somewhere every weekend. As Austin hadn’t really been in a race since last September, it was going to be an uphill battle to be competitive. As I do every year at this time, I just want to say a personal thank you for your support!!!! Without you Austin would not be able to follow his dreams and I can’t tell you how much that means to us.
Thursday Unofficial practice
We hit the track early Thursday morning and we were all eager to get the race weekend underway. Amazingly Austin didn’t show any signs of rust and he was posting times that would see him comfortably in the top 5 in class and top 10 overall. Reviewing the onboard video, the car looked a bit loose and unstable going over Sebring’s famous bumps. A few suspension changes were made to make the car a little more predicable for the afternoon session.
In the afternoon session everyone’s pace improved including Austin’s, which would see him post his best ever time around Sebring and place him top 4 in class. We were very happy with his progress.
Friday Official Practice
We arrived at the track on Friday morning before sunrise as we had another early start. Austin would be on track for two sessions this day. A morning and afternoon one. We continued to make changes based on the information Austin was feeding us about the handling of the car and what we could see on the onboard. Again Austin would be among the leaders in times. With a few minutes to go in the last session of the day a car in front of Austin spun going through the infamous turn 1. Turn one is a blind high speed corner. When Austin arrived he was doing over 175 KPH at apex only to find a car blocking the track. Austin’s first instinct was to lift, unfortunately at that speed with the car already on the edge of grip a lift of that size cause the back end to come around sending Austin off track into the wall. Austin was able to restart the car and bring it back wounded to the pits. Assessing the damage back the trailer, it looked like the team was in for a long night. Austin's front splitter had to be replaced, he also had damage to the nose but other than that it wasn’t that bad. Thankfully the most important thing, Austin was ok, although the crash had really increased his anxiety. We finally finished all of the repairs and completed a wheel alignment at about 11:30pm. We are trying something new this year, we have started doing video recaps of each day at the track. Here's the first one.
Saturday.
We arrived at the track at 6am, to give Austin’s car the once over to make sure nothing was missed the night previous as we were all very tired upon completion. With qualifying up next we weren’t sure what to expect from Austin as his anxiety was quite high. In qualifying, Austin did a brilliant job and set his best time ever around Sebring. He was only half a second off the leaders but the times were so close it would see in qualify 6th in class. Race 1 of the weekend was up just a couple of hours after qualifying. Austin was quite nervous going in but he was able to handle his anxiety and have a great start avoiding any of the carnage. At the end of lap 2 he was running 4th in class on the tail of the top 3. He was able to gap the cars behind but two full course cautions would erase all of the good work he had put in. On the final restart, Austin was under a lot of pressure from the car behind and he made an uncharacteristic mistake in the braking zone that would see him in the grass. Unfortunately the car shut off during this commotion and for some reason it wouldn’t re-fire, thus ending a very promising start.
Austin was pretty depressed when he returned to the pits and apologized for his error. We all rallied around him, he made one small error which had marred a brilliant performance. In the afternoon’s race, Austin really had the bit between his teeth. He had started 7th in class but by lap two he was running 3rd pulling away from the cars behind and sticking with 1st and 2nd. The positions remained this way for most of the race but a late full course caution would again bunch up the field erasing all of Austin’s hard work. What made things more difficult for Austin was there was a lapped car between him and first and second and on the restart, this car would come into play, holding up Austin and allowing 4th and 5th to close in. Unfortunately by the time Austin had cleared the car holding him up 4th and 5th were right on his bumper entering the main back straight which would see them use the draft to pass Austin dropping him to 5th which is where he finished. All in all a brilliant effort by Austin and we were all filled with hope that with Austin starting 5th for the final race on Sunday there was a good chance of a podium!!!!
Sunday
After another late night prepping the car for another early start we were all filled with optimism getting ready for the final race of the weekend. Austin in particular was very proud of himself on how he was able to go toe to toe with all of these pro racers. He was sure he was going to have another great performance. With about 15 minutes before we headed to grid, Austin was getting ready about to hop into the car which was warming up like usual. As I am helping Austin with his helmet, the car shut off by itself. We all just looked at each other is surprise. We try and re-fire the car…..nothing. Off comes the engine cover, 5 mechanics around the car, trying to find the problem. In the next 15mins, my guys had changed the crank sensor, all 4 spark plugs, all 4 coil packs and checked every possible connection we could find. It was heartbreaking hearing everyone head out onto the track without Austin. Austin was crushed, he sat in the car while everyone continued feverishly to try anything we could think of that could correct the issue. It just wasn’t meant to be, we sat there as the race started heartbroken. Austin took things fairly well all things considered, but it was easy to see he was hurting inside. We spent another two hours on the issue with the Radical tech’s trying to diagnose the issue without finding a resolution. It looks like it is a fuel delivery issue which will have to be sorted once we get the car back to the shop in a few days time. A very difficult way to end what was a very promising weekend.
