| |
| Sebring finish first time out! Dateline: March 1997 |
 |
| In the 45th running of the 12 Hours at Sebring on March 15th, the Savasort Porsche 911 finished 28th out of 63 cars overall, and 13th out of 26 in the GTS-3 class. Not bad, when you consider that the Team was running in the slowest of the four classes of cars that run the race, (World Sports Cars, and GTS1, 2 and 3); and even better when you consider that the Team had to work its way back up from dead last after a jammed throttle cable dropped the Team to the bottom spot on the first lap!
Under sunny skies and in front of a near record 103,000 spectators, Sabre Team Savasort driver Neil Crilly and co-drivers Scott Peeler, (who won the Street Stock Touring class support race Friday afternoon), John Annis, Gerard MacQuillan and Sam Shalala drove an otherwise trouble-free race to finish in the top half of the field. The Team ran in a tubeframe Porsche 911 Fabcar with a flat six engine pumping out about 375 horsepower. Because the deal to do the race was put together quite late, with Campbell's Soup Company, Sasco Sports (a race tire distributor), and Fastsigns joining primary sponsor Savasort, Crilly was only able to get twelve laps of practice in the car prior to the start of the race. Also unfortunate was the fact that six of those laps came in night practice on Thursday, and the rest in a mostly rainy Friday morning session, so he essentially had no clear running at all. Prior knowledge of the course helped him post some reasonable times, however. The Team struggled with rear spring choice early on in practice and qualifying. The rear of the car had actually been lifting off the ground on the bumpy airstrip straight because it was sprung too stiffly. On this quickest part of the course, the car got up to a top speed of about 170 mph (274 km/h). The harder springs had been installed to help handling in the twisty sections, but that had to be sacrificed to eliminate the problem on the straight. This and some fuel injection problems contributed to only being able to qualify 51st fastest with a 2:16.9, averaging 94.7 mph (152.4 km/h). It didn't help that, for some unknown reason, the rear and side window section blew out near the end of the qualifying session either! Luckily, it was retrieved without much damage and replaced. The crew did a fine iob of handling this and every other problem, their ten year plus history in Porsche racing as proof they are an experienced group of technical pros. In the race, after the initial start drama involving the throttle cable -- which the crew fixed in about thirty seconds -- the car was sent back out right as the World Sports Car leading Ferrari 333SP (in the fastest class) was coming around the first time. This resulted in some great early ESPN television coverage for the car's sponsors. In total, ESPN covered the event with over eight hours of live telecasts. Later, Crilly was in the car at 3:09 p.m. when the event was stopped by a rare red flag incident because the Hans Stuck/Bill Adam Porsche crashed heavily into the bridge leading to the hairpin. Fortunately, Adam was unhurt in the wreck, which was caused by right side driveline failure, but the same could not be said for the car... It was only the third red flag incident in the event's 45 year history. Several drivers were treated for heat exhaustion near the end of the red flag delay, which saw the drivers sitting stationary in the hot cars for over fifteen minutes. Crilly commented: 'I came around the carousel turn leading onto the hairpin straight and everyone was just stopped dead, and then I could see debris everywhere on the track ahead. I wasn't too disappointed to be stopping though, because I had been racing for about an hour with no drink bottle and was starting to lose my concentration from the heat. In fact, I myself had spun going into the hairpin about a lap before!" In fact, ESPN caught the spin and showed a slow motion replay of that impressive performance! Good for sponsor names going by the cameras, right?
Other than the lap one throttle cable gremlins, the car ran very well throughout the rest of the contest. One other problem occurred in the heat of the afternoon when Crilly had to "short shift" (shift up at a lower r.p.m. than the engine redline) to help control a little overheating. This measure had some effect on lap times, but over a twelve hour race, keeping the car healthy takes priority. In a night stint, Crilly experienced a dirty fuel filter which had to be replaced, as it was causing "bogging" under acceleration and at another point, the lights went and had to be rewired. Overall, though, these were typical problems in a long race on a bumpy, dusty course like Sebring. Further, it was possible to fix them during regular fuel stops. Actually, as the drivers became more familiar with the car and circuit, the car ran so well that the fastest race lap was 2:16.4, half a second quicker than the Team's qualifying time! All the drivers did a good job of posting consistent lap times and keeping out of trouble to overhaul more than half the field by the checkered flag. At the end, in a paddock littered with pretty beat up cars from the numerous incidents, the Savasort Porsche looked great, save a little dirt and rubber build up. The Team's Crew Chief commented: "Usually we go through two or three spare noses [front bodywork sections] at this race. I can hardly believe we're finishing with the one we started with!" To get an idea of how well the Team really did, if the car had run with GTS-1 decals instead of GTS-3, which it could have done, the Team would have finished fourth in class.
The event was won overall by the Ferrari 333SP of Dalmas, Evans, Johansson and Velez. Overall, too, a really great event with a huge crowd and great TV coverage. We were also happy to have Savasort's President Phil Elmore and employee Ron Patton and several other friends in attendance to enjoy the fantastic day. The Team's first appearance was a successful first crack at this tough race, made possible thanks to sponsors Savasort, Campbell's Soup Company, Sasco Sport, and Fastsigns. So, next year, (with a few more than 12 laps of practice! -- Ed.), we hope to finish even higher up the order... |
|
Sponsored by: Savasort Inc. Improving Business Efficiency Since 1929
For more information about Sabre Motorsports and TEAM Savasort: | |
