BRracing - American Le Mans Event - Long Beach (w results)

Part of our growth strategy is to refine and develop our team and personnel so that we are the absolute best shop and team available to our customers……and we strongly believe that motorsports highly develops our skills and knowledge, and helps sets us apart from just any other shop.

That’s why ALL people involved with BRracing MUST HAVE motorsports experience, and have the passion running in their blood.

To that end, BRracing started participating with the GMG team last year (2009) at selected events, and this year we are participating at almost all events across North America….not just one or two of us, but most of our key team resources…..and that’s where this www is being written from. We are at the American Le Mans (ALMS) race at Long Beach (April 16 – 18, 2010), working with and crewing for the six (6) Porsche cars entered by GMG this weekend (most in the Speed World Challenge GT series…..fresh from placing #1 and #2 in St. Pete a couple of weeks before, the other team in the American Le Mans GTC class for the normal ALMS enduro (where we qualified #2 for the race on Saturday)).

Here are some of the pics from the event as they happened during qualifying yesterday (Friday) (Bruce (BRR), Robb (BRR), and Brian Smith (BRR) crewing and running logistics for GMG). This is not us on the outside looking in, this is BRR on the inside learning, and not just playing, but being at the lead of the pack.

BRR’s Brian Smith working the pits, Bruce working the timing and logistics during ALMS-C qualifying

Brian over the wall recording tire temps and pressures during Qualifying of ALMS-C

GMG Porsche GT3 Cup Car coming in for pit stop during Qualifying

GMG qualifying status about half way thru the session (currently #1 in the GTC class…..we continued to improve lap times, but got pinched at the end by an amazing lap by one of the other teams)….Long Beach is a very hard track to get a set of clean, traffic free laps, and/or ones without problems and incidents…..so timing and planning and spacing become key…..as do how to get the tires up to temp quickly (not allowed to use tire warmers in this class).

James Sofronos (owner of GMG, and currently leading Speed GT series), getting ready for the pit stop during practice (Bret Curtis in the car on the track at this moment).

Some of our other friends at the track as well (Joey Hand…in the RLR BMW M3 ALMS GT car as its being rolled back to the pits)

Another friend (Johannes van Overbeek)….driving this year for Extreme Speed w F430 GTs (although, keen eyes will recognize this as the sister car #2, as Johannes car is #1)…..and Johannes will also be joining BRracing at our special event at Laguna Seca on June 1 as one of our instructors……how can you beat that!!!!

BRracing will post more pics and info from the event after today’s activities……stay tuned……BRracing…leading the way.

RESULTs

The ALMS race is an enduro style, versus the Speed World Challenge is a “sprint” style race. In the ALMS, pit stops are key and critical, and teamwork is the difference often between winning and losing. Therefore, joining a pit crew is no light manner…and having BRracing as part of the GMG team has worked very well….and here is some of the action –

Strategy time…..yellow flag comes out….GMG car is in the lead, and has been doing great, running consistent lap times, dealing w the traffic just fine, but now, decision time and teamwork…..here is the team during the race pit stop, changing all tires, doing the refueling, changing drivers…..

The pits are a fun place to be….full of action, but the pits at Long Beach are a whole different experience. There is very little room, there are people and officials running back and forth thru the pits all the time, you have VERY little room, all the teams are crammed together………we were right next to the The Racers Group (TRG) team w Kevin Buckler calling the pit strategy…..and they had an issue in the race, as the car hit the tire wall coming out of the fountain turn, and they did a complete front end, radiator, bumper cover replacement right there….great work….and got the car back out and ran consistent times.

The BRR team during the ALMS race…

The results….the team made a call for a “full” fuel fill, as prior history has shown that the LBGP race is normally filled w some yellow flags, which would mean we need as much fuel as possible. The Alex Job Racing team went for a “short” fill, and was able to get out of the pits much sooner, and therefore was able to put distance and traffic between us…and during the race, we picked off the cars each chance we could…but, we ended up just short, completing the race in 2nd PLACE and 1 second off the the lead car.

At about 2/3 distance…we also had an interesting call over the radio…..as the car was coming down the front straight, and tucked in w other cars in the draft, James let us know, “not sure what just happened, but we lost the left front headlight…..it just got sucked out….nothing we can do….we’re going to push”.

As you will see w the car in post-race tech (Bruce, Jason, Robb were heading up the post race tech inspection, as all top 3 cars have to go thru tear down and inspection). We passed tech w flying colors….and were off to claim the trophy.