Two Top 20s in Class at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring

In typical fashion FSB was there at the end, bettering thirty other teams, many of which took the green flag but failed to complete even one full circuit of the arduous 16 mile, 170 turn German road course. Both of the team’s two Porsche 911s entered in the same split had plenty of battle scars after logging more than 2,250 miles, but they were still competitive right up until the end.  OFFICIAL RESULTS

Car #002, Finish: 18th/19th class/overall, Drivers: Jason Glaze, Jim Ray, Ken Soszka, Randall Sharrett, Zachery Robinson

Sharrett got FSB’s iron-man award for logging a total of  eight hours behind the wheel, averaging lap times of eight 8:56.769. That average includes twenty-three and a half minutes of towing and damage repair after Sharrett was wrecked by another car in Turn 1 at the beginning of Lap 2.  Glaze, Soszka and Ray all had good, solid runs. The biggest struggle the #002 had throughout the event stemmed from connectivity issues impacting Robinson. With less than an hour left on the race clock the team was in danger of being disqualified because Robinson had been unable put in his “fair share” of laps as a driver. A nail-biting one lap run with just two laps remaining in the event filled his quota before his connection dropped again.  An excellent group effort by all!

Car #001, Finish: 20th/22nd class/overall, Drivers: Dean Grogan, Greg Bernardo, Jerry Foehrkolb, Kenny Paul, Larry Krupp

The Schwalbenschwanz proved to be the problem section for the “Bumblebee” early on, with the guardrail collecting paint samples from Krupp, Paul and Foehrkolb.  Grogan suffered a Windows error shortly after starting his 2nd stint around 2 AM Sunday morning, causing Paul to drive for an extra cycle. The race was relatively uneventful for the next few hours as the drivers put in their scheduled seat time, picking up 3 positions in the process. The #001 team’s race ended about 15 minutes early when Paul caught the curb entering the Bellof Esses heavily damaging the car. VIDEO At that point there was no mathematical way the team could have gained or lost any positions, so they finished right where they would have regardless of the accident. Sitting in the pits as the clock ran out Paul made the comment, “Given the effort everyone has put in, I’d be damn proud to own this car even if it is almost bent in half.”