Sebring, FL. The legendary 12 hours of Sebring is something that most driver’s will put on their bucket list of racing. If you can’t drive in it, then you should absolutely attend as a spectator at least once. That is what we have been doing for at least 5 years now and begin our planning and preparation for the next year as soon as the race is over. However, this year was different. We still planned our usual spectator festivities with our “Turn4” crew but this year Jay was fortunate enough to compete in the main support series for the race, the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge on Friday, March 17. We decided to join the Mini JCW Racing team in their #52 Mini Cooper with the support of our main partners at Fuse Lenses. They wrapped the normally standard red Mini with a flashy yellow & black livery with the Fuse Lenses logo on the side. The Mini team was kind enough to post pictures of the wrapped car on social media and began drawing attention to the new color scheme & racing driver. When we arrived at the track on Wednesday we got the first peek at the new car. It definitely garnered a lot of attention because everyone wanted to know who was driving it and what this new sponsor was all about. Obviously that is the goal we hoped to achieve and it worked! Fuse Lenses did not disappoint either. They set up a vendor booth in the midway vending area and stayed very busy handing out free swag and cutting custom lenses on the spot. We also had the company of our newest sponsor, Steady Returns, LLC. They are new to the racing world and Sebring is definitely a unique place to dive in especially as a newbie.
The long weekend began with a promotor test day on Wednesday. This was the chance to get acquainted with the team and get fitted for the car. Jay’s co-driver Mark Pombo took the car out first to work out some kinks and see if any adjustments needed to be made for the track. When Jay finally got his shot to get out there he was surprised by how difficult the car was to drive. Although he has driven this track a million times and driven front wheel drive race cars before, this was a different beast. He knew he would need to get as much seat time as possible before Friday’s race.
Unfortunately this would not be the case. Each time Jay got in the car, his stint was cut short with the car dying on track from electrical issues. All afternoon on Thursday the team looked around trying to find the source of the issue. Friday morning would be one final practice immediately followed by a 15 minute qualifying session. The electrical gremlins took over again and unfortunately this would lead them to qualify in 17th position for the race later that day.
At 11:30am after qualifying the team was to have a “meet and greet” with the fans at the team rig. It was great to meet fans and show off the new livery on the car. We had an opportunity to speak a little about our sponsor Fuse Lenses and give away some goodies & autographs to fans. Mini fans are pretty die hard and we weren’t surprised to see just how many came out to check out the cars. Unfortunately they couldn’t get quite as close to our #52 because the engineers and mechanics were all busy trying to find the source of the electrical problems. After replacing the ECU and many other electrical components they hoped they had resolved the issue.
The race began with a pre-grid fan walk at 3:20pm. Fans got to walk around and take pictures with the drivers and get last minute autographs. It was a beautiful day for racing and Jay and Mark had high hopes of being able to bring the car back up to the front of the pack. We knew anything was possible because it’s not unheard of to go from last place to first place in a race. In fact, the IndyCar driver Simon Pagenaud did exactly that in the St. Pete race one week prior. At 3:40 the race started and Jay began to feel his groove with the car. He was a bit nervous since he had so little seat time in the preceding practice sessions. But each lap he steadily got faster and began picking off cars one at a time until the inevitable happened. Coming out of Turn 4 he felt the loss of power under his feet. He pulled the car off to the left of Turn 5 and shut the car down. It started right back up, but unfortunately the rest of the pack of cars was able to pass him during those precious seconds. During this time his radio connection with the team had also failed so he had no idea when he should pit in to hand the car over to Mark. Luckily there was a full course caution and everyone headed into the pits so he just followed suit. Their pit stop was slower than anticipated but they were in 10th place at that point, with time for Mark to get back to the front of the field. Unbeknownsed to them the other 2 cars had died on track at different times with the same electrical issues and had fallen back several places. All 3 cars had good pace, but stopping on the track during a race will cause you to lose precious time. Mark was able to keep the car at a steady 10th place until an unfortunate event where he smacked the rear quarter panel along the tire wall at turn 13. Obviously this caused damage to the car he so he brought it into the pits for inspection which basically took them out of contention for any good placement at the end.
In the end they finished in 15th place overall. The #73 was able to make a comeback and finish up 4th in class keeping them second in the points so far for the season.
Certainly not the start to the season that we would have hoped for, but the team worked their butts off the entire weekend trying to find the source of the problem. All in all it was decided that the Sebring track, legendary for their bumps & changing track surfaces, was just too much for the wiring of the Mini Coopers.
Tune in to Fox Sports1 on Sunday, March 26 at 10:30am EDT to see all of the action.
The next race for the Mini JCW Racing team is at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX from May 4-6.