NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill Race Report
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:52 am
Well, first off, we did it! We survived the 25 as they say. Race started at 1100 Saturday and ended at noon Sunday.
611 Laps, about 1800 miles, 111 gallons of fuel, 2 sets of Toyo 888 tires, one set of brake pads. We had very little down time. Down time was refueling and changing drivers roughly every 90 minutes, replacing a thrown alternator belt once, replacing the alternator belt a second time and this time fixing the broken alternator bracket, swapping the day nose for the night nose with lights, and changing to a fresh set of tires at about 18 hours. That’s it, the rest of the time we were circulating running an out 2:00 laps. The fast guys was doing 1:40s and the slow guys were doing 2:30’s so we were passing and getting passed almost every lap. We ended up finishing about 30th (haven’t seen final final results yet), but the goal was to finish and top 600 laps and we did that!
This is an interesting race. 55 total entries this year, several Pro or semi-Pro teams (Flying Lizard, Fall Line) that use this race to practice for those shorter races at Daytona and LeMans
The tire budget for the Pro teams was north of $100K alone, they swapped out all 4 tires every pit stop. Our little team had a total budget of $16K split between the 4 drivers. Our drivers, me, Bob Breton, Mike Boyle, Steve Zadig are all current or ex SRF/SRF3 drivers.
Each driver got 4 stints. I have to say that the second night stint for me (0230-0400) was the hardest. It’s late enough with no sleep you are tired already from 2 previous stints in the car, it’s cold and dark (wore an extra top layer of nomex). And when you get out on track about ½ the reflective markers you were using for brake, turn in and apex) have disappeared from the previous night stint and it’s like learning some corners all over again! Seeing morning come was almost cause for a Druid ceremony. You survived till sunrise, now only 4 ½ hours to go.
Overall I was once again very impressed with the quality of the driving. The fast guys (Audi R8 wth Flying Lizard, the Fall Line and other Porsche Cup cars, the Ginetta’s and Radicals) did a very nice job of not dive bombing when we were committed to a corner and (during the day when they could see a point by) did a nice job side-by-side in the corners when we pointed and left room.
For those interested, the car (pic attached with day nose for start of race) was a slightly modified Gen 3 SRF. Drive train was stock sealed SRF3. Nose was lengthened to fair in headlights, a splitter added, tail lengthened and wing added. Brakes, suspension, drive train stock SRF/SRF3. The aero really did help, you could noticeably feel the front end washing out in a corner when closely following somebody, if we’d run the SRF spec Hoosier tires, I’d guess the car would be 4-5 seconds faster than a stock SRF3, but then we would have gone thru 5-6 sets of Hoosiers compared to only 2 sets of Toyos. Slight correction on the suspension. We were using aftermarket Penske shocks not the sealed Enterprises Penske, and slightly stiffer springs.
NASA Press release is here: (and no we are not mentioned in the press release )
https://nasaspeed.news/race-coverage/to ... rformance/
611 Laps, about 1800 miles, 111 gallons of fuel, 2 sets of Toyo 888 tires, one set of brake pads. We had very little down time. Down time was refueling and changing drivers roughly every 90 minutes, replacing a thrown alternator belt once, replacing the alternator belt a second time and this time fixing the broken alternator bracket, swapping the day nose for the night nose with lights, and changing to a fresh set of tires at about 18 hours. That’s it, the rest of the time we were circulating running an out 2:00 laps. The fast guys was doing 1:40s and the slow guys were doing 2:30’s so we were passing and getting passed almost every lap. We ended up finishing about 30th (haven’t seen final final results yet), but the goal was to finish and top 600 laps and we did that!
This is an interesting race. 55 total entries this year, several Pro or semi-Pro teams (Flying Lizard, Fall Line) that use this race to practice for those shorter races at Daytona and LeMans
The tire budget for the Pro teams was north of $100K alone, they swapped out all 4 tires every pit stop. Our little team had a total budget of $16K split between the 4 drivers. Our drivers, me, Bob Breton, Mike Boyle, Steve Zadig are all current or ex SRF/SRF3 drivers.
Each driver got 4 stints. I have to say that the second night stint for me (0230-0400) was the hardest. It’s late enough with no sleep you are tired already from 2 previous stints in the car, it’s cold and dark (wore an extra top layer of nomex). And when you get out on track about ½ the reflective markers you were using for brake, turn in and apex) have disappeared from the previous night stint and it’s like learning some corners all over again! Seeing morning come was almost cause for a Druid ceremony. You survived till sunrise, now only 4 ½ hours to go.
Overall I was once again very impressed with the quality of the driving. The fast guys (Audi R8 wth Flying Lizard, the Fall Line and other Porsche Cup cars, the Ginetta’s and Radicals) did a very nice job of not dive bombing when we were committed to a corner and (during the day when they could see a point by) did a nice job side-by-side in the corners when we pointed and left room.
For those interested, the car (pic attached with day nose for start of race) was a slightly modified Gen 3 SRF. Drive train was stock sealed SRF3. Nose was lengthened to fair in headlights, a splitter added, tail lengthened and wing added. Brakes, suspension, drive train stock SRF/SRF3. The aero really did help, you could noticeably feel the front end washing out in a corner when closely following somebody, if we’d run the SRF spec Hoosier tires, I’d guess the car would be 4-5 seconds faster than a stock SRF3, but then we would have gone thru 5-6 sets of Hoosiers compared to only 2 sets of Toyos. Slight correction on the suspension. We were using aftermarket Penske shocks not the sealed Enterprises Penske, and slightly stiffer springs.
NASA Press release is here: (and no we are not mentioned in the press release )
https://nasaspeed.news/race-coverage/to ... rformance/