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2004 Sebring 12 Hour pics!
As some of you well know, I was in Florida a few weeks ago. I stayed in a little town in the central highlands of Florida called Sebring. My grandparents have a single wide home down there for the winters. Summers they have a full house on a lake not far from Michigan Speedway (they just can't seem to get away from race tracks, it would seem).
Anyway, my father and myself were intending on going to Florida SOMETIME this spring... and we were thinking about doing everything we could while down there. So I immediately suggest we plan it around a major sports car race weekend. Either the 24 hours of Daytona or Sebring 12 hour. The February date didn't work for him, so the March Sebring feature it is! The Daytona 500 was out of the question ;) Anyway, currently the folders on my site are not viewable, despite my earnest efforts to chmod everything so it would be. I have to link them one by one instead... and I may provide small commentary along the way. Enjoy. Starting with the race cars, sorted by class; LMP1: #28 UK Audi R8 - Eventual race winner, shown here in first place exiting the Gurney bend. #38 Champion Audi R8 - Eventual 2nd place finisher, pole sitter as well as local favorite (Champion is a Florida Porsche dealership). #38 Champion Audi R8 #38 Champion Audi R8 yet again #38 Audi on the back side of the track #38 Audi tight pan (taken by my father) #38 Audi at night braking for Chateau Elan Same as above, but with glowing brake rotors Same car and area, different angle. Front discs glowing Another picture of the same car Last one, I swear #15 Taurus Lola-Judd (dad) #22 Dallara Judd (dad) #22 Dallara Judd at night - This car was spitting out spectacular flames through its taillpipes only visible at night. I tried many many times to get a picture of it but failed. There are several pictures of this car to follow. #22 Dallara Judd at night again #22 Dallara-Judd again, zoomed in a bit more A view of the front stretch of the classic circuit (GT3 and Champion Audi on track) Taken by my father #22 and #28 LMP1 cars doing battle at night #37 Lola-Judd #15 Citgo Lola-Judd #37 Lola-Judd (dad) #37 Lola Judd again (dad) #20 Lola-MG - Interesting note about the Lola MG. They were extremely fast LMP675 cars last year (basically called LMP2 now.. some rules changes, though) and have been upgraded to the LMP1 class this year. #16 Lola-MG (dad) #16 Lola-MG at night A Lola-MG in distress--being serviced in the pits (dad) The lone Panoz Esperante GTR1 - Lapping one of many Porsche 911 GT3s Same Panoz lapping a different GT3 at night Good close up of the rear and side of the Panoz (dad) Panoz closing in on a Lola MG (dad) The Panoz GTR1 again... front/side view More Panoz Yet another Panoz shot #28 Audi with a Porsche GT3 on the back stretch Tight pan of the #88 Audi (dad) #88 Audi again--similar shot but slightly further back #28 Audi under acceleration An R8 blurs behind yours truly #33 Riley&Scott chassis with "Elan" engine (Panoz) #12 Riley&Scott-Lincoln - Who says Lincoln doesn't race?! #12 Lincoln-powered Riley&Scott car again Excellent shot of the #12 car by my dad #12 car again (dad) #12 Riley&Scott-Lincoln under heavy braking at night #28 Audi R8 (dad) #88 Audi R8 under braking at night - Faintly glowing brake rotors. Good shot #88 car earlier in the day, shown in second place - #88 car would have a lengthy service later in the day when smoke puffed from the back of the car for a couple laps in a row. A transmission seal went bad and repairs were needed. The car eventually placed 3rd behind the other two Audis (first place was its own UK Audi teammate, the #28 car). The #28 Audi at the spot where it liked it best (first place) #28 Audi again That concludes the LMP1 section. A few notes first: Every car carries 3 lights on the side. Different colors for class designation. The 3 lights are for the cars in the top three positions in their respective class. 1 light is first place, 2 lights is second, 3 is third. This is an excellent system for people to keep track of the top 3 cars in each class. It at least gives a clue to those who aren't using a radio or ALMS' iCard system for Gameboy. As the pictures will illustrate, Red lights are for LMP1, blue for LMP2, Green for GTS and Orange/Yellow for GT. I will get HTML up on my site soon so the pictures will be easily viewable and browsable there... I have plans to use thumbnails and likely also smaller resolution versions of the originals shown here (which are very high resolution). Please tell me if any of the links are dead. I may have entered a wrong URL. NEXT! |
LMP2 class is much shorter. There weren't that many cars entered nor anything that really caught my fancy, thus there's not that many pictures ;)
#30 Lola-Judd (dad) #11 Lola-Nissan #7 Lola-Nissan (dad) #10 Lola-Nissan (dad) Good close shot #7 Lola-Nissan at night #10 Lola-Nissan at night #7 Lola Nissan with a couple GT3s directly behind That concludes the LMP2 section. Yet another NOTE: All the files with a _dad extension (all should have "dad" in parenthesis) were taken by my father with a separate camera. Also worthy to note that he took pictures with a much higher resolution as well. The file sizes are twice that of my own! I went with a more conservative setting because I take a LOT of pictures. 2 Megapixel JPEGs work pretty good for me (that's 1600x1200 resolution). Good high resolution yet doesn't take up an enormous amount of space. If you really want to use up space fast, use the maximum setting that saves in a non-compressed format. lol. I had 128 MB to use up... and use it up I did (although many pictures have been omitted because they were useless... I tried to take many night pictures.. but many were in vein. I deleted a lot of the bad ones at the track and weeded out the rest at home). NEXT! |
GTS class:
In this class are the fastest of the production-based cars. Corvette C5-Rs, Saleen S7s, Ferrari 575M GTCs are the main competitors here... also a lone but severely outclassed Viper GTS-R. #25 Ferrari 575M GTC #25 Ferrari under braking - Front brake rotor can be seen with a slight glow.. very difficult to see that in daylight. #25 Ferrari with a view of the Sebring sky #26 Ferrari 575 - Yours truly appears in the lower right hand side of the corner also attempting to take a photo. A view of the backstretch, complete with a left hand kink - Cars in the shot appear in this order: Audi R8, two Ferrari 575s, a Porsche GT3 and a Corvette C5-R. #3 Corvette C5-R - Eventual GTS class winner and placed 4th overall (only car it didn't beat was the Audis! This includes the remainder of the LMP1 cars). #3 C5-R under braking at night - Front rotor glowing... rear is at the perfect angle that my camera flash reflected off it and appeared in the shot.. it's white. #4 Corvette #3 Corvette shown with a small shoot of flame from its side exhaust pipe - The C5-R was the only car regularly emitting visible flame from its exhaust in daylight. #4 Corvette in the process of retiring - Cause: bad clutch #4 Corvette again... - Not quite sure what the driver was trying to accomplish. #4 Corvette again.. a couple Ferrari 575s scream past I really wish I knew what he was trying to do... I really do! The expired Corvette being towed Another Vette-in-tow shot - Right after I snapped this picture, I hear several spectators asking, almost in unison "What happened?" I turned to see what the commotion was about--the pilot of the now-dead Corvette had just walked behind me without my knowing it! He was past me by a good 30 feet by the time I turned and saw him. Under yellow at the back stretch again, a Porsche GT3, the lone Viper and Saleen S7 packed close The #63 Saleen S7 (dad) Another angle of the same S7 The Saleen S7 at night under braking The S7 and Sebring sky The S7 blurring past Good picture of the S7 by my father - Only missing a tiny portion of the rear... but capturing objects moving at such a high rate of speed is difficult with a digital camera... with the great delay and all. The lone Viper This concludes the GTS section. |
The GT Class:
This is an interesting class. It's overrun by Porsches. There is simply a LOT of them, with good reason; they are excellent cars. This class is also the closest to production vehicles. There are a couple oddball cars in here as well. Including one manufacturer that has rarely if ever sold cars in the U.S.. Some of their early cars were powered by Ford small block V8s in the 1960s (like the TVR Griffith). Anyway, this will be interesting ;) The lone Ferrari 360 Modena (#35, Risi team.) The Ferrari 360 Modena at night, brake rotors and sponsors alight The sun goes down on Sebring - a Corvette roars by (hmm.. wrong class) A couple Porsche GT3s at night (interesting reflective decals) The most odd car of all--The Morgan Aero 8 #49 Morgan Aero 8 again #91 TVR 400R (one of two TVRs on track) #92 TVR 400R #92 TVR 400R again #91 TVR and Sebring sky #91 TVR 400R again One of my dad's TVR photos His other TVR shot - It would appear that my Valvoline Racing hat has yet again made it into one of his pictures. TVR 400R being lapped by the Panoz - One of my personal favorite shots. Close up action of two cars. A difficult thing to do with a digital camera. This concludes the section of photos from the main 12 hour event. Up next is one of the support races that happened the morning of the 12 hour event--The Panoz Racing Series. |
And here it is.. the Panoz support race.
#22 on track A couple cars disappear into the distance A crash at the Gurney bend, right under the drive-over bridge. It involved at least 4 cars (only 1 visible in this photo) Another shot The same Panoz got towed to my side of the track and dropped off... close up of the damage This concludes the on-track photos. The next session is of track-side attractions and also photos later in the week (A few Champ Cars came into town for testing later in the week). Next! |
I seemed to have misplaced my ChampCar photos... I'll find them later. For now, here's a few cars that were at the track, not on it.
An old Datsun 280Z - My mom owns a slightly later model 280ZX. She loves Z cars, so naturally we HAD to have a picture. There were many modified cars inside the track... some would refer to them as "ricers." ;) Either way, NFS Underground players might appreciate some of these. A modified Nissan 350Z A Sea of Z cars What appears to be a stock Porsche 911 (993) Carrera 4S One of the last air-cooled production Porsche engines right before my eyes The heart of the impressively loud C5-Rs that were on track that day A Chevy NASCAR V8.. - note the high rise intake and--what's this? No... it couldn't be! A Carbuerator! lol.. interesting to note... the pushrods are going right through the intake runners... Shelby Cobra 427 (dad) A racing Cobra A DMC DeLorean The 3 rotor powerplant to the DeLorean above - I thought DeLoreans were powered by weak piston Volvo engines :P hmmm... This car needs no explanation An early Shelby GT350 Mustang (dad) - I'm not sure what the SR designation is. Despite my vast Mustang knowledge, I do not know of SR. :") The famous Pennzoil IRL IndyCar - the chassis appears to be of 2002 vintage at the latest, which would make it the championship winner--barely. Sam Hornish was the pilot of that car in 2002 and 2003. In 03, the Dallara chassis changed a bit. It has a flatter nose and an odd rise right before the cockpit, notably missing on this car, which puts it older than 2003. Jaguar endurance car (dad) - I forget the exact name of this, but it is a rather semi-famous endurance racer. Chris probably knows what it is. XJ-15 or something along those lines. Back to the "tuner" cars--here is a newer VW Jetta A modified Mitsubisher Lancer Noble M12 (dad) - A well-known car in Europe making its way to the States... the classified section of recent Road & Track magazines will have it somewhere. The Osca that won the 1954 Sebring event (dad) - Piloted by none other than America's original World Champion, Phil Hill. a tuner RX7 An EXTREME RX7 Honda S2000 sporting new rims and a car bra - I never figured out the purpose to a car bra... nor do I think they look good. the brawny Mercedes SL55 AMG The front of said brawny german car a Ferrari 360 Modena at the beach - This was taken the day after the race. We made our way down to visit one of my dad's high school buddies and his family. A good hour and a half to two hour drive to Hobe Sound from Sebring... it's just north of Palm Beach. Also, the famous rich hideout is right next to us, Jupiter Island. Tiger Woods is one of Jupiter Island's famous and wealthy residents. The homes in the area are unbelievable! This concludes the photo portion of my Sebring STUFF. Next is more on-track footage, this time in short video form. |
Alright, here we have some videos. It'll give you at least a slight idea of what these beasts sound like. They are low-quality AVIs. Nothing about them is spectacular, but what the hey :)
Ferrari 575M GTC goes by - V12 sounding off - I've gotta say, it's not the greatest sounding engine at the track, but not bad. Almost identical to the above - Just no interference at the end from another car ;) On-track action - A few LMP2s, Porsche GT3s and the glorious-sounding Judd V10 powering the #22 Dallara LMP1 car. More action - In order, a Lola-Nissan LMP2 goes by, the #22 Dallara-Judd LMP1 and then a Porsche GT3 More passing cars - Several different cars pass by, including some brawny-sounding LMP1 cars. Some featuring Lincoln power and one with the "Elan" engine (Panoz). Braking for the popular corner in front of Chateau Elan Short clip of the C5-R roaring by followed by a Porsche GT3 - The audio in this video does the Corvette no justice. The sound it emits in person is unbelievable. Just one of the deepest, brawniest-sounding V8 roar ever. There were many cars with similar sounds that day, but the C5-R took the cake. It was absolutely the best of that kind of sound. It simply sounds MEAN View across from Chateau Elan watching them brake for the corner and accelerate out - Decent comparison of engine sounds here. The biggest thing to note is how quiet the Audi R8s are compared to the rest of the cars. They are very quiet yet the absolute fastest vehicles out there.. Very impressive display. I suppose that's thanks in part to being turbocharged as well as having gasoline direct injection. Some corner action at dusk A few GT3s buzz by The remaining Corvette chases down the one of many Porsche GT3s. GT3, TVR and Ferrari 575 in a small group - interesting unison of engine sounds. Brawny-sounding Riley&Scott Lincoln being lapped by one of those eerily quiet Audis A Corvette chases one of the Lola-Judd LMP2 cars I believe this is the Riley&Scott-Elan (Panoz engine) car. One of my favorite cars - The Lola-Judd LMP1 - this is the #15 Citgo car. Judd V10s are absolutely awesome sounding in person.. such a clean scream. Sends chills up the spine. The odd Morgan Aero 8 has a beefy exhaust note! The Morgan again... just before it, audible when the video first starts, a Judd-powered car screams by Braking at Chateau Elan at night More of the same... The Corvette's big 7 liter V8 is prominently heard aggressively downshifting.. It is the first car in the shot. One of the top 3 LMP2 cars whizzing by - Lola-Nissan (V6 power) The Panoz roars by Two R8s go by (the lone Champion car followed closely by one of the UK Audis) The race start from our vantage point - Everything's there :) The Saleen S7 rattles motor home windows as it roars past - The engine in the Saleen is of equal displacement to the Corvettes (7 liters or 427 cubic inches) but the Corvette has a noticably lower, deeper dare I say bigger sound. The S7 sounded a bit more refined, shall we say. But more refined or not, the Corvette dealt the S7 and V12 Ferraris a blow that day. The lone Panoz lapping one of the two TVRs This concludes my Sebring media collection. I hope you've enjoyed them. I will try to get HTML on my site as soon as possible so people won't have to refer to this post as much. Folders are not viewable in a web browser with my new host, despite my earnest chmod efforts. Anyway, I've enjoyed reliving the whole experience through making these posts.. Brings back good memories ;) |
Funny to see the old GT1 Panoz entered.. Does that mean that you could if you wanted to enter a Toyota GT-One?
That would be a reasonable car to race these days. When it did race, we didn't see the best it could do. What we did see confirmed that it had very good speed. BMW only won due to Toyota's misfortune with a tyre blow-out, and the previous year, Toyota had troubles with transmission electronics (causing severe transmission reliability problems, and lots of time spent in the pits changing gearboxes) It was probably one of the first cars to introduce the modern design style that the Audi R8's and the Bentley's s use these days. Thank Andre de Cortanze if you love or hate the GT-One's radical styling. In person, it looks even more wild than any photos suggest. And it is truly small, and extremely low. Hard to believe such an outrageous monster could be carrying the same badge as a so bland 2.4 litre Camry sleeping tablet on 4 wheels. |
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I suppose the reason it was allowed is because it's still a similar design to the LMP roadsters Panoz was racing in the last several seasons. I suppose a Toyota GT One could be entered as well, but no one appears interested in doing so. It may require modification, I don't really know. They do set different rules for different types of engines and such. The Panoz has had the same basic engine for quite a long time now and the ACO has never saw it fit to change the rules for that specific style, so that's likely a reason why it's still around and able to race currently. I'm not so sure if the GT One's kind of engine is legal to race according to current rules, however. It's a possibility. |
The GT-Ones engine is a lot like an Audi R8R type engine. It's a small bi-turbo V8 of 3.6 litres, super-powerful, and very efficient.
I can not remember exactly how much power it had, but I know the road-version could do 0-100km/hr in 2 seconds, and ran to a 340km/hr top speed (limited by the gearing). The road-version was even quicker than the race-versions, since it did without the throttle restrictors of the race-version. On second thoughts, I believe the power from vague memory was somewhere in the region of 650-670bhp. But it is all academic however, since Toyota has retained all of its GT-Ones I think. I don't know if any have gone into the hands of private collectors, as is the case with cars like Mclaren F1 GTR's and the Ferrari F40 GTE's. That Jag you mentioned before, its name is in the photograph. I honestly don't know much about that one. It does appear to be related to the XJR-5. It's not quite as eye-catching as the "big-banger" (in reference to their giant 427 cubic inch V12 engines) XJR8's and XJR9's, and the XJR12. |
nice pics -^
I'm going to a car show this weekend... named "festival of exotic cars" around 150-200 cars will be there... it is going to be fun. I noticed you mainly got side view racing pics... i tend to go for the 3/4 view, but I saw you got some of those... did you by chance get any pics of the cars in the garage or close up parked? |
" thought DeLoreans were powered by weak piston Volvo engines :P hmmm..."
its Peugeot, get it right! on the GT350, its not the R obviously, because of the rear windows, and SR might mean Street Racing? dunno about that either, either way it is a Converted street GT350 to go racing... ;) but I love that car... i had to save a pic of it I've also noticed you don't get enough pics of the cars (cars not racing, lol, you got a good amount of the cars on track) :nono: you have a digital camera, flaunt it! ;) according to the sign (if you read it) it is a XJR-7 (from what I observed) wonders why the SL55 AMG had a ferrari sticker on it |
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And I'm pretty sure it's a Volvo motor powering original DeLoreans :P lol.. taken from the official DeLorean website: "The stock DeLorean engine (known as the PRV V-6 because of it’s Peugeot/Renault/Volvo heritage) while a fantastically reliable powerplant when properly maintained, has never been able to provide performance to match the sporty looks of the DeLorean Sports Car." http://www.delorean.com/performance.asp We were both right :P |
That PRV engine even powered I think the old Renault Lagunas..
It never really overpowered them, since it only had 127kW.. =[ Still it was better than the A4's 2.6 litre V6, but worse that the VW Passat VR6's narrow angle 2.8 litre engine. The Renault and Audi could use the thrusty VW engine, while the VW itself hardly deserved that engine, not with such poor suspension tuning and steering. Riding in the old VR6 Passat on a bumpy road, the experience is best described as tiresome. Not the softest ride quality, and not the firmest, but very busy. But the PRV V6 engine did better in the Venturi 600LM. There it had nearly 600hp. Matt: What sort of camera are you using? If you were really serious about photography, try a 35mm film SLR camera. You can do some awesome things with those that some digital cameras just can not do (unless they are obscenely expensive ones). You'd use a very fast film with an SLR camera for taking photos like these. Something like Kodak Goldmax 800, or Fuji Superia X-Tra 800, or Superia 1600 if you are taking photos at night. Biggest problem at night is the time it takes for the photo to be taken. It can take more than 10 seconds per photo. |
Really nice pics, from the few I did click (takes ages on 56K), hehe...
Anyway, how does your camera, last so long with battery? My Sony V1, lasts 1-2 hours... (and if I use video mode, it last half that again, and one of my 128Mb memory cards, can only hold 5min 56sec.... and a 32Mb I have, holds 1min 31 sec. - Or 50 and 12 high res photos respectively - 5megapixels, This weekend, is the Rally of NZ... May get a watch at that.. And following week is V8 Supercars.. I haven't even bought a ticket.. not even sure if I want to go now. |
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