Wednesday, March 18, 2009

12 Hours of Sebring


Whale... It’s just around the corner, as this weekend features the 57th running of the Mobil 1 12hrs of Sebring Sports Car race, which is the American Le Mans “Superbowl” event of the season, a la the Rolex 24.

This year’s kick off classic appears to be slightly down upon overall entries, albeit a strong field nonetheless, as the ALMS is touting the fact that multiple Auto manufacturer’s will be taking part with such names as Acura, Audi, Ferrari and Peugeot to name a few.

You may wish to check out a pretty entertaining show upon SPEED; Project LMP1 which dissects Acura’s revolutionary approach to making its petrol powered race car able to potentially defeat the diesel powered titans of its sport by building a racecar with the rear wheels mounted on the front...

Look for De Ferran Motorsports and Patron/Highcroft Racing to run these interesting Acura ARX-02a creations vs. the Audi and Peugeot’s, as both will be featuring two car line-ups of very accomplished racers. Peugeot will have a raft of Formula 1 drivers while Audi will have its legendary Endurance racers behind the wheel.

Meanwhile Chip Ganassi has given his two Indy Car pilots a Day pass to compete in the grueling road race on the pumbling concrete straights of Sebring’s ex-Bomber air base, as Scott Dixon will co-drive with Gil De Ferran and Simon Pagenaud, while Dario Franchitti will partner Scott Sharp and David Brabham. As I’m guessing they’ll be high tailing it upon “Cheep’s” personal G5 in order to be on hand at the Barber Indy Car test session the day after...

Look for an impressive eleven hours of TV coverage on the SPEED Channel this Saturday (March 21) beginning at 7AM Pacific, preceded by a rerun of the Acura Project LMP1 show at 6AM: As always check your local listings...

Sebring Spotters Guide