I shared the #38 TPC Racing Porsche GT3 Cup car with Manuel Matos.

The entire event was held on Thursday including practice, qualifying and the race. The weather forecast was calling for thunderstorms all day, but when we arrived on Thursday morning the track was dry and it looked like we might get the morning practice sessions in without any weather issues.

PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING

We had two practice sessions on Thursday morning followed by an early afternoon qualifying session. The track had been repaved since the Daytona 24 Hour event in February and the grip level was tremendously improved in the infield section of the course. We had a softer car than what we ran in February, which was probably the wrong way to go, but overall the car seemed decent.

The most significant handling issue was with the rear of the car. At corner entry we would lose the back end of the car right at turn in. For the second session we made changes to the rebound adjustment in the rear dampers and the rear anti-roll bar. This seemed to help, but was about all the setup work we were able to do in the limited time available.

Manuel qualified the car at 1:00pm. He managed a 1:58.9, which qualified us in fifteenth position. There were no more practice sessions prior to the race, which didn't begin until 7:15 pm. Right after qualifying the rain finally came. It poured for the next several hours and we all started preparing ourselves for a wet race. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that I would be able to see. I put a stick with a rag on the end inside the car and tried a few things that were intended to keep the inside of the windshield from fogging up. I drove blind in the race at Mt. Tremblant and I didn't want a repeat of that experience.

The rain continued for most of the afternoon, but it started to clear up around dinner time. We all sat around trying to guess the weather. Personally, I was rooting for rain as I thought we would have a much better chance of being competitive in wet conditions. At one point we were considering going with a compromise setup, but eventually settled on our regular dry setup.

THE RACE

The track was still a little wet when the race started, but everyone started out on slicks. Manuel got us off to a good start and he moved up a few positions into twelfth. There were a few incidents in the early going, but nothing that translated to a full course yellow. My teammate John Littlechild had to pit because of some damage to the #37 Porsche, but since he made it in under his own power the race track remained green.

Less than an hour into the race there was a full course yellow. The leaders had split the GT field and we had gotten the worst of it, as Manuel was now behind the overall leaders in line. This effectively put us a lap down to at least the five or six front running GT cars, all of whom ended up getting a wave by. We pitted during the caution period for fuel, tires, and a driver change.

Shortly after we got back to green flag racing I was barreling down the short straight on the way to the infield kink when I saw my teammate Randy Pobst off on the left in the grass along with the #22 PTG BMW in what appeared to be a fairly big crash. I couldn't tell what happened, but that made two TPC cars that were out of the race in the first hour. It was not a good start for our team.

I was in seventeenth position in GT when I took over, but about an hour into the stint as I was going back to throttle in turn one I had a big blow out of the right rear tire. I managed to keep from flying off track, but now I had to make the long, slow trek back to the pits on three tires. Since I had to cover nearly an entire lap, and then pit under green we lost a ton of time from this disaster.

Later on I was back on track with a few other GT cars still on the same lap as me. The TPC crew gave me the information over the radio that I had a couple cars up ahead that I could catch and one close behind on the same lap. There was a possibility that we could make it to the end on fuel so I started to push hard when disaster struck again. I had another blow out of the right rear, only this time it happened in the middle of the kink - a fifth gear section in the infield that is taken very close to flat out. I saved it again, and was at least grateful that neither of the blow outs came while I was on the banking.

Once again I made the long slow trip back to pit lane for some more tires. Since I had plenty of time to talk with the crew during my in lap we decided to let Manuel get back in for the last ten or fifteen minutes. Manuel steered clear of any further disasters and brought us home in fifteenth. Given that there were twenty-seven GT cars in the event, our finishing position was an indication of how difficult a race it was for most of the teams. My teammates Nick Longhi and Emil Assentato finished in ninth position, which easily the best finish for any of the four TPC Racing Porsches.

Fortunately, our team has a month to regroup and fix a few cars before we head off to Barber Motorsports Park for round eight.