25hours of Thunderhill Race Report

11 Dec, 2011

The USAF 25 Hours of Thunderhill, the longest road race in North America. The race was far from smooth. There were several full course throughout the race for various on track incidents and a 30 minute red flag overnight for a Factory Five Cobra that dropped its fuel cell on track and caught fire in Turn 2. The driver wasn’t hurt but it was the second major incident of the weekend.

The other being the Kiwi Racing Honda Civic that rolled between turns 7 and 8 during Friday afternoon practice. The driver was airlifted to a local hospital with a severe concussion,kept overnight for observation, and was released Saturday morning. The other major twist to the race was the rash of penalties being handed out from the race officials. The two major ones being 15 cars given penalties at once for passing under the yellow flag and a 10 minute penalty for the G22/TruSpeed Porsche for coming too close to a safety vehicle while under yellow flag conditions. All that plus four full course cautions that broke up the racing into segments that threw curveballs at many teams' strategies. It was an especially great race for Mazda cars: the manufacturer took four of the five class wins and ten of the possible eighteen podium places.

The overall and ES class win was all two-time returning winning Mercer Motorsports from the green flag. The team was on a mission to secure the hat trick. Both G22/TruSpeed and World Speed Motorsport gave chase but Mercer was not to be denied their record setting victory. The battle for second between G22/TruSpeed and World Speed Motorsport lasted for most of the race. The two teams were rarely more than a handful of laps apart. Damage to the World Speed Motorsport BWM at damn saw them drop to third behind the No.161 Team Stammer Inc./Bavarian Performance BMW.

The most competitive, largest and slowest class was E3 with 22 starting entries. From the start the battle appeared to be between the Mazda Miatas and the Spec E30s. The pole sitting DivaSpeed Acura Integra was the early leader in class but a lost wheel late in the night created a gap that could not be overcome. Most of the other main contenders had problems of their own: the Hooverspeed cars had mechanical issues and contact with other cars, the Miatacage.com entry had mechanical issues, and Sector Purple Racing had contact damage with only a few hours left in the race costing them a podium finish. Left amid the rubble was the immaculate RJ Racing Miata. The team's ability to have quick and smooth pit stops and avoid any on-track incidents allowed them to build a gap to the rest of the field. At around eight and a half hours into the race RJ Racing settled into a lead that they would never surrender. The team was also able to finish 15th out of the 80+ competitors despite the class having the slowest qualifying times of any class.

The victory for the #100 Atlanta Motorsport Group on E0 was a tense one. They overcame a blazingly fast 25-minute transmission replacement to win by two laps over the #9 Miata of Team Edge Motorsports. Third went to the Bimmerworld BMW #30.

For the second year in a row the E1 victory went to CJ Wilson Racing . The pole sitting No.38 Mazda had to overcome a deficit of 30 laps down on the leader at nightfall. The CJ Wilson team battled through the field to claim victory. Giving their driver Tyler McQuarrie his fourth class win. Second was the Robert Davis racing RX-8. Rounding out the podium was the Scion Racing Tc that blew a motor at 9a.m. on Sunday causing a full course caution. The team hustled an engine change in order to get the car out for a hard fought third.

949Racing team had a rough road to victory in E2. Their Mazda Miata lost a brake caliper that cost them 45 minutes while they repaired it. Second went to the #102 Team Atlanta Mazda and third went to the one-time class leader Team Super Miata No.51, the sister car to the class winner.

The Factory 48 Radical was the only ESR to commit to the full 25 Hour race. Their race was far from easy. After being as high as 3rd overall they had to change an engine around 8pm and a clutch early on Sunday morning. Due to the mechanical troubles the team completed the fewest number of laps of any of the podium finishers.