Thanks everyone for the congratulations, to complete any endurance race is an accomplishment and everyone deserves a high five.
If you haven't noticed, I'm quite stoked I finally achieved my first victory in the Endurance Series. I got the call to help out with Hyperion on Wednesday, less than a week before the drop of the green flag, and with careful consideration I decided to take on the race with teammates
@Kjeld Lund and
@Meister Fetz.
I knew after our very first test session that although we missed qualifying and incurred a 30 second penalty with a pit start, we'd be extremely competitive with the other teams. I believe DEPR was within a couple of tenths of the pole time on a full tank of gas, which would be even faster under qualifying conditions, and I was running consistently 3-5 tenths slower than him and Meister.
Also with us for practice and testing was the DART squad, made up of
@Nail-27,
@RobbiefromBC (team rabbit),
@TEX36,
@WIDEeyedDRIVR, and
@euclid58. These gentlemen deserve the most respect doing what they do despite their age. I'm extremely impressed with their will to make it to the checkers and have fun no matter the pace or position they're in. Congratulations to all of you for a stellar performance at Brands Hatch.
Our race got off to rocky beginnings with out pit lane start, penalties, and an unfortunate problem with our car right at the very start requiring us to go into the garage for changes and repairs. After we got back out, Meister put in a very consistent and solid drive to claw his way back up the order before handing it off to DEPR, who managed to put us in the lead before the first red flag.
After I for into the car for my stint, and the race resumed, I had to go to work to pick my way through the field but unfortunately received a penalty from Race Control for incurring 5 warnings total, and I had to pull into the pitlane to serve the time. After
@AJ released me once more, I almost immediately got into an intense battle with
@GTR_VENTURI and the GTR Blackhawks. Thank you to Venturi for racing me clean and with respect and racing room, I appreciate your racecraft and driving standards. 👍
It took a few laps to get around the GTR Megane, but once I pulled off the risky move into Paddock Hill Bend I put the hammer down and surprisingly ran the fastest lap of the event. I did not expect or try to run this lap, and stayed in bounds while doing so. I am genuinely surprised with my performance and I am happy I made no major mistakes. Sitting through two Red Flags and laps on laps of Safety Car I was relieved when we were released for the last time with almost 50 minutes remaining. At this point I noticed it was
@ScuderiaLucas in the GHH Megane behind me, and I pushed a little bit harder to pull the gap out expecting a really good battle with a fellow CORE American GT competitor.
Taking the checkered flag was, and forgive me if I sound a bit cheesy and over-reactive, one of the greatest feelings I've ever had on GT. I was joking around with my teammates and managers
@Gravitron,
@GTP_Dutchy, and
@PASM on our team channel about the podium celebrations, and asked for permission to do burnouts and donuts from
@Peelster1 and Race Control. Winning the race made my day complete, and I hadn't even eaten anything or slept that much the night before. Because of this, after the imaginary podium celebrations and eating some food, I was eventually spotted in my camper, out cold.
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Big thanks to the entire Hyperion team for the opportunity to race for them, and keeping me motivated throughout the Safety Car periods and Red Flags. Also thanks to AJ, Peelster,
@littleregret265, and the entire team who made this race happen. It takes hard work, patience, and persistence to run these events and you guys pulled it off very well. Hopefully I'll get to see everyone at Spa for my last hopeful race of the 2015 season, and then at future races in 2016. This year has had its ups and downs but that's how racing is. Great job everyone, see you soon.
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, but it's still a pleasure. Sadly nearly half the time I was under red flag. Can't really do much about that though. Although I didn't really have any close racing with another in my class it was a lot of fun to and I was pleased with my consistency only doing really two-three "big" errors.
