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60 cars started the 2013 USAF 25 hours of Thunderhill, and each of them had a story.
Here’s the story, so far, of the #03 Team QRP Superlite SLC.
In qualifying, Mike Skeen was able to put the new car on the second row, 4th overall and P2 in class, just behind the Superlite SLC-based DR Eagle, who took the class pole. This was an incredible feat, and the qualifying position was a portent of sp...eed in the race.
At the start of the race, Skeen leapt ahead at the first turn and led the field around for the first lap. And with a few exceptions for penalties, pit stops and the like, that’s how it mostly stayed through Saturday, with the SLC never dropping below 5th place, and usually holding a couple of laps lead in first place overall as other competitors fell by the wayside, or couldn’t keep up the pace set by the SLC in its first long endurance race.
The SLC was able to run very long fuel stints, the first one being around 2 hours and 40 minutes, which is stunning for a large V8-powered car. Some caution periods and the ability to short-shift the car, making use of the massive torque reserves , helped extend the runs.
One of the other sports racers blew an engine, and replaced it in the pits. Another blew up an engine in a spectacular way without a replacement.
As night approached, some of the other fast cars began to have problems. The Wolf GB08S, a carbon-fiber, all-out sports racer that had qualified on the overall pole with a soul-crushing time began to slow, as electrical problems began to affect the engine. Eventually it would lose 15 laps in the pits changing an alternator. It returned and started to run very fast times.
The SLC responded to the faster cars by staying true to the race plan, which called for times in a certain range, which it maintained. The faster cars changed places behind the SLC, but never managed to make up laps lost, and when threatened, the SLC just poured on faster laps as needed, settling down when the situation permitted.
All night the SLC maintained a comfortable cushion of 2-4 laps that none of the other cars seemed to be able to do anything about. If the SLC could stay out of trouble, and maintain it’s speed, it looked like a contender for the overall win.
Then, just as the sun was about to rise over the track, a steering shaft failed. There was no spare, and the car was done.
And just like that, a dominating performance with a new car was cut short.
But there is more to the story.
There’s the part where a small team of amateur builders built a car from a kit that challenged purpose-built race cars from Audi, Porsche and Radical- and led them all through the majority of the race.
There’s the part about a small company from Detroit that created the SLC from scratch to challenge the big guys- and did.
There’s the part where a small, amateur team who believed in themselves were able to build a team that devised a race strategy that enabled them to lead a major endurance race for the majority of the race until a small, obscure part failed them.
And the part of the story where a group of great drivers were able to extract the maximum from the car, while protecting it for the long run.
That’s the story of the #03 SLC for this race.
But that’s not the end of the story for the car. The 03 car will be back, and write new chapters in more races. And we think that will be a great story to tell.
The Superlite SLC. It’s a pretty exciting story so far.
