Sebring 2006 Write-Up (WW!)
03-09-2007, 08:23 AM
#1
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 1,357
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sebring 2006 Write-Up (WW!)
I had the pleasure of attending the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2006 and I had a fantastic time! I fully intended to post-up my experiences then, but I only made it through writing about Friday night before I was distracted from the project. As time passed, I didn't see the point of posting such a late report, so it has been sitting in draft form ever since.
I have decided to dust it off and post it "as-is." It only covers Friday and Friday night, but I'm hoping it will serve to get everybody excited about the upcoming event, which I will also be attending. I took a million photos, but I am only including three, mostly to break-up the page, add visual interest, and of course, for sensationalism. ;-)
Enjoy!
Friday (03.17.06)
"Did you see that thing in the road? It was a dead alligator." One doesn't hear that so much in Texas, I mused. And so it was as I found myself riding shotgun in Ken Fluhr's Audi TT, flying past orange groves, swamps, and dead alligators on the way to the 12 Hours of Sebring road race. Ken had been staying with his parents in Orlando for a few months, so I took the opportunity to fly down and catch the race with him on the cheap. The new Audi R10, succesor to the allmighty Audi R8 (one of the most successful racecars in history and winner of Sebring for the past five years), would be debuting at the race and stood a chance of making history as the first diesel-powered racecar to win a major event. We arrived at the track and parked in the Audi Corral, which had been setup by the Florida Audi Club and sponsored by Audi of America. The corral was located on the outside of the last turn leading onto the front straight and provided a good vantage point to see the cars. It was also conveniently located next to the bridge leading across to the hot pit and paddock area. There was a parking area of course, as well as a hospitality tent, which would be our base of operations for the weekend.
We had left Orlando early Friday morning in order to get to Sebring in time to catch the first race of the weekend - the SPEED World Challenge Touring Cars, which included three STaSIS Enginnering Audi A4 racecars. Two of them were B5 chassis cars and one was a B6, which had been modified with B7 body panels. STaSIS are working on two real B7 racecars, but they weren't ready in time for the race. We hadn't yet walked around and got our bearings at the track, so we watched the touring car race from the Audi Corral. I was rooting for the Audis of course, but I also couldn't help cheering for former Audi RS 6 driver Randy Pobst in his Mazda 6. I was also keeping an eye on the 034 Motorsport Jetta, driven by Christian Miller. I know Javad Shadzi, the owner of 034, so I was hoping his car would do well.
Chip Herr drove the wheels off of the number 17 Audi, running his outside front tire a little wide on the exit of the last turn and kicking up a huge cloud of dirt for at least three consecutive laps. He was rewarded with a 10th place finish, which is very good considering the sheer force in numbers used by the Acura team, which fielded no less than five cars, with almost an equal number of Mazdas. Perenial favorite/winner Bill Auberlen won the race in his beautifully prepared Turner Motorsports BMW 325i, with Randy Pobst crossing the line less than a second behind for a 2nd place finish. Unfortunately, the 034 Motorsport Jetta suffered a hub failure and a DNF.
After the touring car race, Ken and I spent some time walking around the paddock area. Most teams had open garages so we could get a good look at them working on their cars, which I find almost as interesting as the racing, but the Team Joest Audi paddock was locked down tight, with everything hidden away behind barriers. In the pits, they used blankets to cover portions of the engine when the cowling was removed for servicing. Very secretive. Very annoying. Anyway, we spent the rest of the afternoon circumnavigating the track and getting sunburned.
The next race was the SPEED World Challenge GT Cars. These are the bigger cars: Corvettes, Vipers, Cadillacs, Porsches and the non-factory Aston Martins. The only other car was perhaps the most interesting entry - a privateer Nissan Skyline GT-R, sporting twin-turbos, all-wheel drive, and a driver that sits on the wrong side of the cockpit. Since the Audi RS 6 no longer competes in this series, I found myself rooting for their former enemy - Cadillac. The Cadillac CTS-V is a beautiful racecar and made one of the best sounds on the track. It's side-exit exhaust roared with a sound deep, deafening, and distinctive. It gave me the chills. But, a Viper prevailed for the win, Andy Pilgrim's Caddy came in 2nd, and despite being practically unbeatable on Sony Playstation's GranTourismo 3, the Skyline remained a backmarker until it went out with a mechanical failure. Riceboys everywhere wept.
<img src="http://www.jimmypribble.com/images/paradelap.jpg">
After the race, the Audi Corral was given a chance to do a couple of parade laps. We lined-up under a beautiful sunset and followed the RS 4 safety car around the track. Ken did his part to fall-back a bit in order to then speed-up and have a little fun in the corners, but unfortunately, we were only the second car behind the pace car and couldn't afford to risk getting the group in trouble with our hijinx. So, Ken mostly behaved himself.
That is the last time that I could say that about Ken, myself, or anyone else I saw there that night.
Friday Night: The Jungle
Never having been to Sebring, I was completely unaware of the prevailing fan disposition there. Officials estimated 150,000 spectators attended Sebring this year. By my reckoning, 149,000 of those spectators were drunk. Also, Sebring coincided with Spring Break, so there was a massive contingent of young, rowdy partygoers who were probably clueless that there were even races going on. Finally, Friday night was St. Patrick's Day, which formed the third part of a perfect storm of mad partying atmosphere. Certainly, there were the organized events - the bikini contests and "The Party Zone" at the Bacardi tent for the plebeins, but the real action began in the North Paddock area on towards the Flag Pole roundabout and then to Green Park, where the RV shanty town, campers and collective mass of humanity was simply referred to as "The Jungle" - an area so foreboding that Ken had avoided it during previous trips to Sebring. On Friday nights, a Mardi Gras atmosphere prevails (complete with an established bead necklace barter system), but traditionally, Saturday night comes with a dark twist. People begin setting fires. They burn the cheap furniture that they brought with them to use at their campsite or on top of their RV. A burning couch makes an impressive display. A dozen burning couches amidst so many vehicles, property, and people is downright frightening.
On the sebringfans.com (NSFW) website, I found a photograph that exemplifies to me the spirit of The Jungle:
<img src="http://www.jimmypribble.com/images/sebringjackassery.jpg">
Insane! (Seriously though, who wouldn't burn that chair.)
Friday night began with several of us standing at someone's trunk (Ian?) and drinking straight from a bottle of Crown Royal. To the best of my recollection, this is what happened after that. We took three or four rental golf carts and drove to The Jungle. We were four to a cart and Ken was driving the cart I was on. We called our cart the Stage 3 because somebody had disabled the rental company's speed governor. So, we were able to tear down the road faster than the other carts and in fact, faster than some of the cars.
<img src="http://www.jimmypribble.com/images/sebring_upshirt.jpg">
We spent the next couple of hours chasing each other around at top speed, dodging cars and pedestrians, jumping curbs, throwing beads at remarkably stingy coeds, all while trying not to spill our beer or get tangled up with the law. Our jackassery ran so high at one point that a guy walking down the middle of the road, dressed like a cow and smashed completely out of his mind, pulled himself together long enough to say, "Hey! You guys need to calm down!" as we tore past him on the out-of-control Stage 3 cart. We made sure to yell "Alfa Romeo! Viva Alfa Romeo!" every so often in the hopes that we might be misidentified by witnesses, though it probably wouldn't have worked since we were all wearing our Audi livery. Anyway, at some point Christian drove his golf cart into the women's restroom after a girl had rejected his bead offering, we got kicked off the actual racetrack when we accidentally ventured over the wrong fence, and I got stuck in a port-a-jon when Ken blocked the door with the cart. I felt the port-o-jon lurch when he hit the door and I braced for the tip over and a sad end to my evening, but thankfully, it stayed upright. It could have been much, much worse.
Eventually, we decided to take our fun to the roundabout at the flagpole, where most of the partyers had congregated. We had just parked and started to walk away from our golf carts when suddenly the STaSIS crew, led by Christian Long of all people, ran up and jacked our carts! I ran after the nearest one and tried to leap onto the back as it sped away, but somehow underestimated my abilities and instead smashed my knee straight into the steel hand rail. I crumpled to the ground in pain. I took a second to catch my breath and looked up to see that our second cart hadn't got away yet. So, I gathered myself up and ran for the second cart. This time I aimed for something soft and decided to jump directly on Christian in the passenger seat. Unfortunately, I underestimated my abilities again and I smashed my head on the edge of the roof. There was a flash of blinding pain and I crumpled to the ground again as the cart sped away. I rolled around on my back in misery and every so often I would see the face of a drunk person lean over me and come into focus saying, "Dude, are you alright?" I would croak some sort of reassurance and they would move on. Ken also hadn't fared well. He had gone after one of the STaSIS guys, but had been kicked to the ground while the cart was moving. He had also lost his wallet and he was pissed off.
We walked back to the STaSIS paddock area. I tried to sell Ken on the idea that this was part of the adventure of it all, but he wasn't having any of it. When we got to the STaSIS paddock, we found them all wildly drunk, loading up on the back of the golf carts in order to get them to do wheelies. Of course, that made the carts unsteerable and there were some close calls even in the short time that I watched. Then "somebody," still inconsolable and out of sight of the crew, thoroughly urinated all over the STaSIS trailer (not that they were in any condition to have noticed). This is an email exchange that I had with Alex van Gerbig, a friend of mine who works for STaSIS:
Jimmy: I just got back from Sebring, so I had a chance to see them (STaSIS) race and I got a good look at their faux-B7 car. They really do first rate work, even if the crew gets a little rowdy stealing golf carts and such. I smashed my knee and my head pretty good trying to jump back on as they tried to get away. Oh well, we were all drunk, so no hard feelings - it was all good fun. Oh, and if their trailer smelled like urine...well, I don't know nuthin'.
Alex: Jason says that no one smelled the urine over the vomit stank from the other side of the trailer
That's disgusting.
After we recovered our carts, Ken insisted that we report his lost wallet to the police. I advised him that this was a Really Bad Idea, since historically, neither he nor I have had very good luck chatting it up with the police, especially while drunk. But he insisted again and the next thing I knew, our caravan of golf carts were headed directly into the heart of darkness - the police "green zone." We parked and Ken walked inside the command post to make his report. Just in case something went wrong, I nervously ran to a nearby port-a-jon and watched from a cracked door. All seemed well and Ken walked out unescorted. There was a tense moment as I had left my beer on the back of the golf cart and when we went to leave, it flipped off the back and broke on the ground. An officer ran to the door and demanded to know what was going on. We explained that it was an accident, quickly cleaned-up the mess and then we went on our way without any trouble. Predictably, nobody had turned-in the lost wallet. After that, we called it a night, went back to the corral and camped out.
---- Fin ----
Just a couple of quick notes. The police did recover Ken's wallet, so he became happy again. In fact, between being so excited about recovering his wallet and Audi winning the big race, Ken decided to celebrate with some fireworks. And by fireworks, I mean he almost blew-up a Sunoco gas station with a shoulder-fired rocket. I guess you had to be there.
Seriously, Sebring is boring. See y'all next week.
Jimmy
I have decided to dust it off and post it "as-is." It only covers Friday and Friday night, but I'm hoping it will serve to get everybody excited about the upcoming event, which I will also be attending. I took a million photos, but I am only including three, mostly to break-up the page, add visual interest, and of course, for sensationalism. ;-)
Enjoy!
Friday (03.17.06)
"Did you see that thing in the road? It was a dead alligator." One doesn't hear that so much in Texas, I mused. And so it was as I found myself riding shotgun in Ken Fluhr's Audi TT, flying past orange groves, swamps, and dead alligators on the way to the 12 Hours of Sebring road race. Ken had been staying with his parents in Orlando for a few months, so I took the opportunity to fly down and catch the race with him on the cheap. The new Audi R10, succesor to the allmighty Audi R8 (one of the most successful racecars in history and winner of Sebring for the past five years), would be debuting at the race and stood a chance of making history as the first diesel-powered racecar to win a major event. We arrived at the track and parked in the Audi Corral, which had been setup by the Florida Audi Club and sponsored by Audi of America. The corral was located on the outside of the last turn leading onto the front straight and provided a good vantage point to see the cars. It was also conveniently located next to the bridge leading across to the hot pit and paddock area. There was a parking area of course, as well as a hospitality tent, which would be our base of operations for the weekend.
We had left Orlando early Friday morning in order to get to Sebring in time to catch the first race of the weekend - the SPEED World Challenge Touring Cars, which included three STaSIS Enginnering Audi A4 racecars. Two of them were B5 chassis cars and one was a B6, which had been modified with B7 body panels. STaSIS are working on two real B7 racecars, but they weren't ready in time for the race. We hadn't yet walked around and got our bearings at the track, so we watched the touring car race from the Audi Corral. I was rooting for the Audis of course, but I also couldn't help cheering for former Audi RS 6 driver Randy Pobst in his Mazda 6. I was also keeping an eye on the 034 Motorsport Jetta, driven by Christian Miller. I know Javad Shadzi, the owner of 034, so I was hoping his car would do well.
Chip Herr drove the wheels off of the number 17 Audi, running his outside front tire a little wide on the exit of the last turn and kicking up a huge cloud of dirt for at least three consecutive laps. He was rewarded with a 10th place finish, which is very good considering the sheer force in numbers used by the Acura team, which fielded no less than five cars, with almost an equal number of Mazdas. Perenial favorite/winner Bill Auberlen won the race in his beautifully prepared Turner Motorsports BMW 325i, with Randy Pobst crossing the line less than a second behind for a 2nd place finish. Unfortunately, the 034 Motorsport Jetta suffered a hub failure and a DNF.
After the touring car race, Ken and I spent some time walking around the paddock area. Most teams had open garages so we could get a good look at them working on their cars, which I find almost as interesting as the racing, but the Team Joest Audi paddock was locked down tight, with everything hidden away behind barriers. In the pits, they used blankets to cover portions of the engine when the cowling was removed for servicing. Very secretive. Very annoying. Anyway, we spent the rest of the afternoon circumnavigating the track and getting sunburned.
The next race was the SPEED World Challenge GT Cars. These are the bigger cars: Corvettes, Vipers, Cadillacs, Porsches and the non-factory Aston Martins. The only other car was perhaps the most interesting entry - a privateer Nissan Skyline GT-R, sporting twin-turbos, all-wheel drive, and a driver that sits on the wrong side of the cockpit. Since the Audi RS 6 no longer competes in this series, I found myself rooting for their former enemy - Cadillac. The Cadillac CTS-V is a beautiful racecar and made one of the best sounds on the track. It's side-exit exhaust roared with a sound deep, deafening, and distinctive. It gave me the chills. But, a Viper prevailed for the win, Andy Pilgrim's Caddy came in 2nd, and despite being practically unbeatable on Sony Playstation's GranTourismo 3, the Skyline remained a backmarker until it went out with a mechanical failure. Riceboys everywhere wept.
<img src="http://www.jimmypribble.com/images/paradelap.jpg">
After the race, the Audi Corral was given a chance to do a couple of parade laps. We lined-up under a beautiful sunset and followed the RS 4 safety car around the track. Ken did his part to fall-back a bit in order to then speed-up and have a little fun in the corners, but unfortunately, we were only the second car behind the pace car and couldn't afford to risk getting the group in trouble with our hijinx. So, Ken mostly behaved himself.
That is the last time that I could say that about Ken, myself, or anyone else I saw there that night.
Friday Night: The Jungle
Never having been to Sebring, I was completely unaware of the prevailing fan disposition there. Officials estimated 150,000 spectators attended Sebring this year. By my reckoning, 149,000 of those spectators were drunk. Also, Sebring coincided with Spring Break, so there was a massive contingent of young, rowdy partygoers who were probably clueless that there were even races going on. Finally, Friday night was St. Patrick's Day, which formed the third part of a perfect storm of mad partying atmosphere. Certainly, there were the organized events - the bikini contests and "The Party Zone" at the Bacardi tent for the plebeins, but the real action began in the North Paddock area on towards the Flag Pole roundabout and then to Green Park, where the RV shanty town, campers and collective mass of humanity was simply referred to as "The Jungle" - an area so foreboding that Ken had avoided it during previous trips to Sebring. On Friday nights, a Mardi Gras atmosphere prevails (complete with an established bead necklace barter system), but traditionally, Saturday night comes with a dark twist. People begin setting fires. They burn the cheap furniture that they brought with them to use at their campsite or on top of their RV. A burning couch makes an impressive display. A dozen burning couches amidst so many vehicles, property, and people is downright frightening.
On the sebringfans.com (NSFW) website, I found a photograph that exemplifies to me the spirit of The Jungle:
<img src="http://www.jimmypribble.com/images/sebringjackassery.jpg">
Insane! (Seriously though, who wouldn't burn that chair.)
Friday night began with several of us standing at someone's trunk (Ian?) and drinking straight from a bottle of Crown Royal. To the best of my recollection, this is what happened after that. We took three or four rental golf carts and drove to The Jungle. We were four to a cart and Ken was driving the cart I was on. We called our cart the Stage 3 because somebody had disabled the rental company's speed governor. So, we were able to tear down the road faster than the other carts and in fact, faster than some of the cars.
<img src="http://www.jimmypribble.com/images/sebring_upshirt.jpg">
We spent the next couple of hours chasing each other around at top speed, dodging cars and pedestrians, jumping curbs, throwing beads at remarkably stingy coeds, all while trying not to spill our beer or get tangled up with the law. Our jackassery ran so high at one point that a guy walking down the middle of the road, dressed like a cow and smashed completely out of his mind, pulled himself together long enough to say, "Hey! You guys need to calm down!" as we tore past him on the out-of-control Stage 3 cart. We made sure to yell "Alfa Romeo! Viva Alfa Romeo!" every so often in the hopes that we might be misidentified by witnesses, though it probably wouldn't have worked since we were all wearing our Audi livery. Anyway, at some point Christian drove his golf cart into the women's restroom after a girl had rejected his bead offering, we got kicked off the actual racetrack when we accidentally ventured over the wrong fence, and I got stuck in a port-a-jon when Ken blocked the door with the cart. I felt the port-o-jon lurch when he hit the door and I braced for the tip over and a sad end to my evening, but thankfully, it stayed upright. It could have been much, much worse.
Eventually, we decided to take our fun to the roundabout at the flagpole, where most of the partyers had congregated. We had just parked and started to walk away from our golf carts when suddenly the STaSIS crew, led by Christian Long of all people, ran up and jacked our carts! I ran after the nearest one and tried to leap onto the back as it sped away, but somehow underestimated my abilities and instead smashed my knee straight into the steel hand rail. I crumpled to the ground in pain. I took a second to catch my breath and looked up to see that our second cart hadn't got away yet. So, I gathered myself up and ran for the second cart. This time I aimed for something soft and decided to jump directly on Christian in the passenger seat. Unfortunately, I underestimated my abilities again and I smashed my head on the edge of the roof. There was a flash of blinding pain and I crumpled to the ground again as the cart sped away. I rolled around on my back in misery and every so often I would see the face of a drunk person lean over me and come into focus saying, "Dude, are you alright?" I would croak some sort of reassurance and they would move on. Ken also hadn't fared well. He had gone after one of the STaSIS guys, but had been kicked to the ground while the cart was moving. He had also lost his wallet and he was pissed off.
We walked back to the STaSIS paddock area. I tried to sell Ken on the idea that this was part of the adventure of it all, but he wasn't having any of it. When we got to the STaSIS paddock, we found them all wildly drunk, loading up on the back of the golf carts in order to get them to do wheelies. Of course, that made the carts unsteerable and there were some close calls even in the short time that I watched. Then "somebody," still inconsolable and out of sight of the crew, thoroughly urinated all over the STaSIS trailer (not that they were in any condition to have noticed). This is an email exchange that I had with Alex van Gerbig, a friend of mine who works for STaSIS:
Jimmy: I just got back from Sebring, so I had a chance to see them (STaSIS) race and I got a good look at their faux-B7 car. They really do first rate work, even if the crew gets a little rowdy stealing golf carts and such. I smashed my knee and my head pretty good trying to jump back on as they tried to get away. Oh well, we were all drunk, so no hard feelings - it was all good fun. Oh, and if their trailer smelled like urine...well, I don't know nuthin'.
Alex: Jason says that no one smelled the urine over the vomit stank from the other side of the trailer
That's disgusting.
After we recovered our carts, Ken insisted that we report his lost wallet to the police. I advised him that this was a Really Bad Idea, since historically, neither he nor I have had very good luck chatting it up with the police, especially while drunk. But he insisted again and the next thing I knew, our caravan of golf carts were headed directly into the heart of darkness - the police "green zone." We parked and Ken walked inside the command post to make his report. Just in case something went wrong, I nervously ran to a nearby port-a-jon and watched from a cracked door. All seemed well and Ken walked out unescorted. There was a tense moment as I had left my beer on the back of the golf cart and when we went to leave, it flipped off the back and broke on the ground. An officer ran to the door and demanded to know what was going on. We explained that it was an accident, quickly cleaned-up the mess and then we went on our way without any trouble. Predictably, nobody had turned-in the lost wallet. After that, we called it a night, went back to the corral and camped out.
---- Fin ----
Just a couple of quick notes. The police did recover Ken's wallet, so he became happy again. In fact, between being so excited about recovering his wallet and Audi winning the big race, Ken decided to celebrate with some fireworks. And by fireworks, I mean he almost blew-up a Sunoco gas station with a shoulder-fired rocket. I guess you had to be there.
Seriously, Sebring is boring. See y'all next week.
Jimmy
03-10-2007, 03:19 AM
#3
AudiWorld Super User
I barely recall something about Stasis stealing a cart, but I thought it was Tibbetts' cart.
It was Stasis' retribution for something...can't remember what. But it was sure funny.
03-11-2007, 09:57 AM
#4
New Member
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 391
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
So THAT'S who shot the rocket at the gas trucks!
We were playing golf cart polo in the Porsche parking area and all of the sudden we hear "Fire in the hole!" and see a purple streak of light head right towards those old (probably leaky) gas trucks. Everyone gasped and held their breath waiting on the race track to explode, but it never happened.
03-12-2007, 10:03 PM
#5
AudiWorld Super User
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 6,631
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Hey, hey now..... the golf cart was borrowed...
without permission of course:^)
Sorry about that Jimmy..... I heard about the liberating of the golf cart from it's opressive owner well after it happened, lol.
STaSIS has a bit more mellow crew this year. The crazzy aussie is not back with the team and I think it was his doing.... or maybe one of the UK Mahle guys.... but hell, what do you expect from a drunk from the UK?
Sorry about that Jimmy..... I heard about the liberating of the golf cart from it's opressive owner well after it happened, lol.
STaSIS has a bit more mellow crew this year. The crazzy aussie is not back with the team and I think it was his doing.... or maybe one of the UK Mahle guys.... but hell, what do you expect from a drunk from the UK?
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
Alias Unknown
Canadian Discussion
1
03-13-2007 06:10 AM
Longwolf (Christian)
Florida Discussion
3
03-01-2004 07:04 PM
