SEBRING, FL March 17, 2007 –Usually in a long distance endurance race, there are often periods of comparative calm. Not so at today’s 55th running of the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Both Dyson Racing Porsche RS Spyders finished the most grueling North American endurance race with resilience in a race that saw a steady stream of cars in the pits needing both bodily and mechanical resuscitation.
Case in point: the #20 Theford/Norcold car of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith. They finished sixth in class and tenth overall after spending forty-five minutes replacing a side pod and radiator damaged an hour into the race after being hit by a backmarker. “Those lost laps made the difference in our race, unfortunately” said Dyson. “The car ran solidly the rest of the race and we did a great job making up lost time, but the deficit was too large.”
The sister car of Butch Leitzinger, Andy Lally and Andy Wallace also suffered on- track incidents and unscheduled pit stops to attend to electrical gremlins that produced intermittent shifting problems. They finished fifth in class and ninth overall. “Sebring is as tough as any 24 hour race and today’s race only served to confirm that,” said Wallace. “But we learned a lot today, not the least of which is the toughness of our new Porsches.”
“This was Andy Lally’s first race with us and it seemed like he has been with us much longer,” noted Rob Dyson. “He fit right in and was one of fastest P2 runners in the last part of the race. It’s too bad about the incident with the 20 car, because Chris and Guy were right on the leaders’ pace all day. Today showed that the key to Sebring is making sure you can keep the pace and respond to changing conditions which we were able to do. This was our inaugural race with these cars and we are just scratching the surface. The support we are receiving from Porsche is very gratifying. We are very committed and have been around long enough to know what it takes, so I am optimistic that we will have a very effective season.”
Pos | Car# | Class | Drivers | Difference | Car Make |
1. | 2 | P1 | Pirro/Werner/Biela | 0 | Audi R10 |
2. | 26 | P2 | Herta/Franchitti/Kanaan | 6 laps | Acura ARX |
3. | 15 | P2 | Fernandez/Diaz/Martinez | 8 laps | Lola B06 |
4. | 1 | P1 | Capello/McNish/Kristensen | 11 laps | Audi R10 |
5. | 7 | P2 | Dumas/Bernhard/Castroneves | 13 laps | Porsche RS Spyder |
6. | 9 | P2 | Brabham/Johanssson/Dayton | 18 laps | Acura ARX |
7. | 4 | GT1 | Baretta/Gavin/Papis | 23 laps | Corvette C-6 |
8. | 4 | GT1 | OConnell/Magnussen/Fellows | 23 laps | Corvette C-6 |
9. | 16 | P2 | Lally/Leitzinger/Wallace | 24 laps | Porsche RS Spyder |
10. | 20 | P2 | Dyson/Smith | 31 laps | Porsche RS Spyder |