Sebring 12 hour?

I did stop by the corral a couple of times. Didn't talk to too many folks, there weren't a lot hanging around whenever I came by. We took up space on the bleachers for a while, particularly on Friday Based on the photos, I might have actually talked to you for a bit during the last SVRA race.

Also, looking at the pictures, I missed a lot of stuff I didn't know about. Pre-grid walk? Big bonfire at the hairpin? We were hiding in the Nissan and Porsche tents about the latter time, and didn't try to hard to get to the track before the race started.

It was interesting noting the size of the Mazda corral at Sebring versus the size it's going to be at the Mitty in six weeks. Quite a difference.

In reply to Keith:

Having the ability to see the T&S is very awesome. The last two hours I was plopped next to some people with laptops on the spectator hill at T3. I have been to maybe 10 ALMS races and getting to see the lights on the side of the car is great but you can never tell the gaps obviously. BUT with that said, What a complete cluster berkeley with the position lighting at Sebring this year. It made it hard to tell what was going on. Someone sitting next to me thought it was because it was a WEC race and some cars were not in the lighting group or some crap, but I call bullE36 M3. It was actually kinda pissing me off that the lights were not telling anything.

yeeeeah, about that 'bond fire' in the hairpin, that was the annual couch burn... you sure you dont want to make this an annual pilgrimage? :P

the Mazda corral barely came together in time for the race. We had less than two weeks to do anything for it, and one of those weeks I was out of town, so we did the best we could with what we were given. At least the corral was in a good location again :)

friedgreencorrado wrote: In reply to Joe Gearin: Isn't Rennie one of the oldest friends the magazine has? I have a dim memory of Tim mentioning him in an article about building a BMW 2002 for SCCA IT..back when the mag was still named "Auto-X".

Oh, yeah --- Rennie has been a great friend of GRM for over 20 years. Tim and he met when the magazine was just starting out. Little known fact----- Rennie competed in the 1983 Sebring 12 Hour Race in a BMW 2002--- and finished! He's quoted in this year's Sebring program.

The Mazda corral was quite well placed. The best spectating I did all weekend was possibly the SVRA race on Friday from the Mazda bleachers.

The position lights didn't help us until we found out what they meant I bought a program, but upon initial inspection it mostly seemed to be writeups on historic Sebring and I missed the pertinent tech information. I found it at around 9 pm on Saturday.

Joe Gearin wrote: Little known fact----- Rennie competed in the 1983 Sebring 12 Hour Race in a BMW 2002--- and finished!

I cannot imagine showing up to the 12 hours in a car that was already at least 9 years old.

I'd think that a 2003 spec 996 GT3 R would not have been competitive with this year's crop of GTE cars...

Note that Joe didn't say he was competitive, but that he finished

There was a 935 in the museum (which had secret hours, and the cars all disappeared before the end of the secret hours, a big disappointment) which had apparently been raced at a high level for about 8 years. That's a pretty serious lifespan for a competition car.

True, Rennie's car was old at the time, and they did the race on an incredibly tight budget (were begging for gas from other teams by the end of the race, very limited spares, etc.) They finished pretty well, and were the top finishing 4cyl car though!

I'm not sure if you could gain entry to a modern 12 hour on such a tight budget though. This was back in the early 80s.

Sounds like they'd fit in at the Thunderhill 25, though.

I was there and I must say, it was beyond what words can describe. I shook hands with Alan McNish and Michael Waltrip. McNish is a class act guy and I didnt even realixe it was MW until a buddy of mine told me. Team Dyson did a great job of winning their ALMS P1 class seeing as they had their new car for only 12 days at the time the green flag was waved. The GT class battle on the final lap was amazing to say the least.

Keith wrote: There was a 935 in the museum which had apparently been raced at a high level for about 8 years. That's a pretty serious lifespan for a competition car.

8 years hell, 935's are still competitive now. At the Rose Cup last year (basically a big SCCA Club Race that brings out a lot of Pro's / Semi-Pro's), a 935 finished 2nd after giving a totally modern GT-1 spec Mustang a thrashing the entire race. It spit flames on overrun, too!

Funny thing is, a year or two before that a 962 won the Rose Cup after a rules-loophole let it run. It flat-out dominated everything on the track. I wouldn't be surprised if they could still hang with LMP2 cars...

miataman86 wrote: I was there and I must say, it was beyond what words can describe. I shook hands with Alan McNish and Michael Waltrip.

I stood next to Waltrip at the urinal... Don't worry, he washed his hands.

Javelin wrote:

Keith wrote: There was a 935 in the museum which had apparently been raced at a high level for about 8 years. That's a pretty serious lifespan for a competition car.

8 years hell, 935's are still competitive *now*. At the Rose Cup last year (basically a big SCCA Club Race that brings out a lot of Pro's / Semi-Pro's), a 935 finished 2nd after giving a totally modern GT-1 spec Mustang a thrashing the entire race. It spit flames on overrun, too! Funny thing is, a year or two before that a 962 won the Rose Cup after a rules-loophole let it run. It flat-out *dominated* everything on the track. I wouldn't be surprised if they could still hang with LMP2 cars...

If Rennsport Reunion is any indication...they can. The Hotchkiss 962 was WAY faster than the Van Merkstejn RS Spyder on the straights, but the more modern aero of the RS made it pull better through the corners.

The picture I have of Rennie's car, co-driven by the Clown, is of a 320i.

Here's a picture of it from '88, I think.

Waiting for aussie to tell the tale of Mongo..

friedgreencorrado wrote: Waiting for aussie to tell the tale of Mongo..

With bated breath, how many scotch bottles in the hold? Still wandering off center steering?

TRoglodyte wrote: Still wandering off center steering?

You could say that...

Compounded by 1000 fold. At a stand still, you could get .5 turns out of the steering wheel without affecting the angle of the front wheels.

In reply to Maroon92:

Im not gonna lie, I was hopping I would still be alive when I got back.

It was a blast hanging out with you folks.

Mongo was awesome, he is a legend already, I swear more people made a beeline to get a photo of the old guy than the Ferraris on track.

The story of Mongo and Sebring 2012

Mongo was stubborn, every time we attempted to repair any item on the bus it fought Sean and I all the way, of course my attempts to help just slowed Sean down anyway.

Repairs in the preceding 2 weeks included, repairing a hub seal, replacing a roof vent, replacing a 24v headlamp (blew up the 1st 12v one), fixing a broken wiper and locating blades that fit a 46 year old bus, installing a custom hitch, wiring a 24v bus to work on a 12v trailer, oil, fluids, coolant, adjusting the brakes, greasing the clutch, accelerator, shifter and clutch and the list goes on

Mongo had not done a long trip for more than 10 years, we were a little worried about the smoky engine, old rads, clutch, 4 speed manual trans, rear end.... well everything.

After a last minute thrash we got underway only 2 hours late at 9pm Thursday, drove to Dayton where we met with Dukeofundersteer, Maroon92 and his SO Amanda at Puburgers place, BTW those roads are narrow and have wall to wall cars on each side, and we had a trailer on a bus for a total length of 60'.

Back on the way, to the sound of excited voices, we powered on through the night.

Through Tennessee I had a moment where Mongo decided to get his game on, running downhill I had let him get a head of steam and was building some speed when I found my 2 lanes had become one berm lane on the wrong side of the road. I entered this one lane at 78 mph by GPS in a workzone with a TN State Trooper watching me as a sawed at the 1/2 turn of steering slack trying to keep an articulated 8' wide load in a 9' wide lane. I held strong as the cop pretended he was busy looking at something else. Maroon92 (Brad) advised me he felt a lurch and looked out the window just as a semi passed his face about 2' away at a combined speed around 140mph.

Despite my attempts to send us all into oblivion, Mongo motored on using fuel at a solid but not as bad as expected rate around 9mpg. Sean and I shared the wheel until we got into Atlanta when we picked up 4 more passengers, Antistance, Froggy, Brad's Dad (Randy) and brother piled on. We loaded yet another aussiesmg car from Brad onto the trailer and left it at the residence for pick up on the return. I had a shower at the house, I didn't even ask and nobody complained, yeah I was stinky.

Randy who has truck and large vehicle experience took the wheel for a while and i got a couple of hours sleep after being up more than 34 hours since 2am Thursday. It was bliss.

Mongo had consumed some oil but we were learning about some issues with the generator. We started the gen by swapping a new battery in as the original was drained by a 12v draw somewhere, however the seal on the Propane fitting was bad so it was leaking the precious gas into the air. The catch 22 was this made the gen fuel line freeze, no fuel it dies, no battery it wont start, we checked it ran prior to leaving but didn't find this issue until too late.

Things quickly became interesting with the less taste driven drinkers eliminating the contents of many poor quality suds and no water to assist the flushing. A 110v fridge with meat that quickly became very pungent and no AC on 9 bodies in close contact with each other.

However Mongo soldiered on.

Arriving at the track Sean and I were simply exhausted, we couldn't get to park in the infield despite having infield parking purchased prior to the event due to a downed line closing the access across the track. Was I irritated, no, I was an angel (shutup you guys).

We eventually found a spot near turn 5 that could fit us in, I backed her in and we quickly spewed out of Mongo's belly and I started crying for a scotch, be damned if I didn't have to get my own.

Several different scotches were sampled and compared, Glenlivet 21 was a clear winner IMHO, thanks Antistance.

We walked around and saw the sights for a couple of hours and found that there are mutants living in our midst. Carrying glasses of scotch as we walked through the Police compound. Met the survivors at Ricks camp and several other wierdos. We fit in well except most of the parties had packed up by the time we arrived. We sat around Mongo and had a couple more then one by one floated off to sleeping in our tents or Mongo.

In the morning after a princely 2 hours sleep, I made breakfast, yay the propane hotplates work....mmmmm bacon. Duke and I wandered of and walked everywhere including the pits and checked out the cars and the females who seemed to be shading the cars from the hordes of voracious men present. We wandered about the historic paddock, drooooled over the Aston Martins and just watched the sights and sounds.

We eventually found the rest of the crew and we watched the start of the race trackside. The day was a blur of beer, speed and fun. We spent time on the scaffolding at Camp Rick, (ESPN3 videoed us it may have aired) Ran into fellow GRMer and friend Dave Lind, walked about 20 miles through the day and generally had a blast until the final climactic minutes.

As soon as the race was over we loaded up and within 30 minutes we were underway, we had been camped for less than 24 hours. I drove out of the facility and about 120 miles onto US75 to get us clear than asked Randy to take over as I was in trouble, I needed sleep. He took over and drove through the night while Sean and I finally got some sleep, I awoke around 8am and felt a lot better. We were a few miles from dropping randy and crew back at Atlanta.

At the residence we hooked up the trailer, took showers, talked, promised to stay in touch and left. Well that actually took a few hours. We then drove to meet Tom to pick up some $2012 Challenge Mustang parts for free. Then Sean and I insisted on eating our second meal in 4 days and we stopped about 30 miles down 75 at an IHOP.

Suddenly we were pressed for time for those who had to be at work, where did those 5 hours go.

We had discovered some mechanical issues developing, we were losing air pressure, water temps were creeping and oil was leaking from the hub we had previously repaired....dammit.

We added water but the coolant was full, it was decided the rads need a flush and as the ambient temps dropped, the water went back under control.

The air leaks gained in volume and at one point the air line to the gauge in the dash split, locking the air brakes, Sean made short work of the problem and had us patched up and running again in 10 minutes.

The hub leaked more and more prodigiously, we found a bung in the hub itself and started adding oil as we went, I am proud to say it worked.

We dropped Brad, Amanda and Paul (dukeofundersteer) at 2am in Dayton, Puburgers met us on a 4 lane so we could avoid the tight streets, what a guy, he didn't even know us outside of the forum.

Sean and I made the final run home making it to the Compound at 5.30am. We threw our stuff into our cars and I immediately locked my keys in the trunk, thanks for the ride home Sean. What a dufus I am.

Oh I took Monday off, it's good to be the Boss

I have to say, Mongo was quite the trip! I have to thank Steve and Sean for a fun ride down and up. Got some things to tweak and adjust, but for the most part, it was a blast!

Steve, we need to get the wrap going on the outside! I can only imagine seeing peoples faces when we show up in a B-17 missing its wings!

We need to make it a mobile hot spot as well, so that way we can link our laptops and phones to its network. That and a TV.

Wifi Hotspot, is a good idea, the TV is already planned, one in front at the top of the steps and one in the bedroom.

The bomber theme is taking shape, anybody got a lead on where t get a piece of domed plexiglass around 2' diameter.

I need decals also.

Sorting the issues has started, replaced the air gauge hose and pressure washing the engine bay to get to the rear hose that leaks. Picking up a Propane O ring today, The axle seal is next. Then to find the 12v draw.

I had a ton of fun with all my friends, new and old. Waking up in "Town 52", half asleep cracking jokes was awesome. Sleeping on the ground with a 10 pound ashtray missing my head by half a foot was pretty funny as well.

Walking around the infield was cool. I wasn't about to drop my shorts at turn 5 without atleast 10 more beers in my system. Good thing we got out of there. Camp Rick was awesome once again. The beads on the fishing pole had me laughing my ass off. Talking to a Grammy Award Winning producer and song writer without me knowing was pretty cool as well.

Next year, we have to plan it out so that way we get there on Wednesday, so Mongo will be the main attraction to the infielders!

No problem on the car storage and late night rendezvous, this forum/the people on it have been good to me and I believe in passing it along.

PubBurgers wrote: No problem on the car storage and late night rendezvous, this forum/the people on it have been good to me and I believe in passing it along.

Trust me, Amanda and I appreciate it. The car was well cared for, and we were kept well entertained when Mongo was a bit late on Thursday night. Thanks again, mate!