This race includes all sorts of cars, with Porsche GT3 cup cars and prototypes at the top of the food chain, and Miatas near the bottom. There were all sorts of drivers too, including pros like Wolf Henzler, Johannes Van Overbeek, John Fogarty, Randy Pobst, etc. Being among the slower cars on track was a new experience for me after all the track days in the Atom.
The top two overall finishers were both Porsche cup cars, with a Catterham finishing 3rd. Does that make you wonder how an Atom would/could do in this race? Me too!
Our team was in contention for a class win most of the way until we suffered a hub failure with less than 2 hours remaining. At that time we were reeling in the class leader for a potential sprint race to the end. I was happy to be able to deliver 6 hours of quick laps without any major mistakes, and without getting taken out by any of the much faster overall leading cars.
Our class winner was the first person to ever complete this race alone. That's right, he drove raced for 25 hours non-stop, and also won. His name is Steve "Gorilla" Gorarrian, from Rhode Island, and he's the recently crowned SCCA Spec Miata national champion. I had a great battle with him around 6:30 AM, just after sunrise. At that time we both did our fastest laps of the race. I set the fastest time of any car in our class, only to be topped by Gorilla on (I think) his 542nd lap.
Another amazing Gorilla stat - I read on the Miata forum that he drove himself 1.5 hours to the airport after the race & took a red eye back to the east coast, so he could report to his day job this morning. Apparently Gorillas don't need sleep.
Around 5AM a UFO emerged from a cloud of dust around 2 BMW's in front of me going through a high speed turn. With no way to avoid it I only hoped it was soft. As you see below, it was not.
