Winner! Winner! Winner!

[crash]

Trying to stay humble, but also very excited and proud of the FFR PDG GTM race team as we won the inaugural Utah 6 hour NASA endurance race in ES class, we won the overall race up against some "pro" competition, and we also secured the Western Endurance Racing Championship title this last weekend! WOOOHOOO!

I can't say enough about the work and efforts of Richard and Jim on the GTM, or the hospitality shown to us from Roy, Alan, Zack, and the rest of the crew that came out to help support us. It was an amazing effort, and for those of you that have never been, the track facilities at Miller Motorsports Park are FANTASTIC. The museum there simply blew me away. It's small, but it focuses on Shelby cars and has some of the best and most interesting examples I have ever seen. The Le Mans winning GT40 is there, along with a bunch of other GT40s, coupes, and Cobras. This museum should be on everyone's bucket list that has or is interested in these cars.

A special thanks, of course, goes out to our sponsors, Mendeola Transaxles, Factory Five Racing, My Race Shop LLC, Baja Designs Lighting. THANK YOU!!

I'll try and put a race report together shortly, and there should also be some video that I need to review and post. First real day back at work in three weeks, so it may take a little while. :)

[68GT500MAN]

Way to go Team PDG!

[David Hodgkins]

Fantastic news!! Congratulations PDG!

:)

[Ray]

GREAT JOB. I've been following along on FB over the weekend.

Congratulations.

Ray

[Movieman]

The heck with humble! When you're good your good! :D
Congratulations!

[johngeorge]

:) NICE!! Congrats team! Those 'pro' guys included pro racer driver Randy Pobst!

[The Race Line]

Nice Job Everyone.

[GTM RACER]

I am sure there is more to the story! I know every one worked very hard for this effort and The Utah FFROG club helped make it possible!

[skullandbones]

I know you have had some bad luck with some mechanical issues on the longer races in the past. Has the PDG team worked out some of the kinks and carrying that forward in their "bag of tricks" for the next big one? It seems like you are so close to breaking thru. This sounds like a real great victory for morale, as well. Congrats on the Championship! WEK.

[WIS89]

Congratulations Team PDG!! I am stoked for you all for a great, well earned victory!

Here's hoping for many more victories to come!

Regards,

Steve

[riptide motorsport]

Congrats...........well deserved!

[GTM RACER]

Rumor has it that here is going to be an LMP1 and an LMPC car entering the 25 hour race this year. AND let's not forget the once SLC (not one anymore, and they will deny it ever was one) Team Davidson who finished 2nd last year. Former PDG driver Elliott Forbes-Robinson will be driving a BMW this year. Former driver and WERC Champion, Chris Durbin will be driving an SLC with Quick Racing Products of Stockton, California. I won't be surprised if a couple of obsolete DP's come out as they are pretty cheap on the net to purchase.

[crash]

I know you have had some bad luck with some mechanical issues on the longer races in the past. Has the PDG team worked out some of the kinks and carrying that forward in their "bag of tricks" for the next big one? It seems like you are so close to breaking thru. This sounds like a real great victory for morale, as well. Congrats on the Championship! WEK.

We are. The car is in continuous development. We have a few items that showed up in the last couple weeks that we hope to get on the car soon in preparation for the 25. Don't know yet if we are going to SEMA this year, but the car is looking better than ever. What we really need is a tire sponsorship. ;)

[Fraser D]

Well done folks!!!!
I will be following you during the 25hr so good luck.

[VD2021]

You have every right to be excited and proud. That is awesome and you Guys rock!

Congrats to you all.

[vnmsss]

We just got home from the 6 hour enduro at Miller, and it was truly awesome to see Team PDG on the top step of the podium. Kudos and big congratulations to the entire team!!! BIG thanks are also in order for the amazing members of the Utah Cobra Club who came out to support the 6 hour effort. You guys were amazing!!!!

Karen

[Matt Ries]

Crash, That's AWSOME News! I love the updates that you give on team PDG, thanks in advance of your write up.

[sk7500]

Plain and simple. YOU GUYS ROCK!!!

[kabacj]

Awsome Job Team PDG. As you rightly point out Crash brute power and speed are only one factor that gets you to the endurance race finish line first. Often times fuel strategy, sequencing of your pit stops with a genenerous helping of racing luck also significantly factor into the win.

Course you need all those things AND a car that goes the distance. Its one thing to build an endurance racer out of a showroom car where everything was engineered to work together for 100k+ miles. What you guys have done to build a consistantly successful GTM based endurance racer is really impressive.

If more pro teams and DP cars show up, thats going to stir the pot at the 25 eh? Great for getting more coverage, but also raises the bar and cost quite a bit. Hope to see you guys at SEMA or the 25.

John

[crash]

RECAP--

As most of us do in our daily lives, we prioritize things. Although most of us don’t drive really fast race cars in competition, there really is not a whole lot of special processes that go on, except they are adjusted for 150+ MPH speeds. One of the things I do before a race starts is to go through my priority list and figure out what I want to accomplish by operating this vehicle that cost so much in dollars and hours of people’s lives. Sometimes things are a little murky because there are so many variables that a well defined goal, or list of goals, is not readily apparent. That was not the case this weekend as it was pretty clear what was needed to be accomplished, and what had to happen to bring those goals to fruition.
As there was no car at the track in Utah that was really in our class speed wise(they were either a WHOLE LOT faster, or significantly slower) it made it easy to sort things out. The goal was to simply run our own race and let the chips fall where they may.
Randy Pobst piloted a BMW powered sports racer that was about 10 seconds a lap faster than us, but other than that, we had the field covered. Steve Zadig did a nice job at qualifying, so we started on the front row, outside. Really the plan was to go pretty fast for the first few laps, let things sort out, then ease off and try and conserve fuel. As we have never run more than 3 hours with this engine between fuel stops, that would be important and high on the list…fuel mileage.
The race began as planned with both the PDG GTM and the BMW pulling out about a 10 car lead from the rest of the pack by the first corner. What wasn’t exactly according to plan was that there was a Porsche and a BMW that started behind me that were actually pretty fast. About 5 laps in I pulled things back a little to conserve the car and was a little surprised at how quickly these cars caught back up. As I was seeking fuel mileage, I let them by and pulled in behind them. This did a couple of things. First it gave me a reasonably fast car to use down the straights for drafting, and second, it helped me learn some more tricks on how to drive the track as I had had all of about 20 laps at that point to figure it out.
I learned a lot, and also went from using the brakes in 11 spots down to using them in 6 spots, so just further reducing the wear on the car while still maintaining a fast pace. My thought was to not allow anyone that was faster to pass me and get away except for the insanely fast sports racer. He would have to wear the car out for us to have a shot at the 1st place position. This strategy worked beautifully. After 3 hours and 15 minutes the low fuel lights came on on the GTM and it was time to head for the pits…in second place overall as the car I was chasing initially went into the pits about an hour and a half into the race and I simply picked up on the next faster car. Pretty easy drive with the exception of some rain flurries and a couple dust storms that created white out conditions. As in can’t see past the windshield conditions. Not fun, but definitely exciting and attention getting.
Beyond the environmental conditions that were out of our control, the race was going according to plan and, as is usually the case, the race was “coming to us”. We went longer than 3 hours, so now we only had to do this one stop so long as the car was in good shape as far as brakes and tires, and it was, so this eliminated a second “splash and go” stop from the original overall strategy.
The PDG GTM ran near flawlessly the entire 6 hours, but the same can not be said for the sports racer. After 4 hours and 15 minutes it came in with some heating issues and they also knew they were out of brakes. They pulled immediately into the garage area to address the issues, but then, upon further inspection, found oil leaking from both the engine and the transaxle. They would later find out that they lost a head gasket as well. So there we were sitting pretty with about an 8 lap lead on second place. Although the sports racer had banked about 12 laps on us, it wasn’t nearly enough to keep us out of 1st place.
When it was all said and done, we won the ES class, we won the race overall, and we won the Western Endurance Racing Championship Series year end points battle that evening at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. This would later be revealed to be the longest event ever held at MMP(we travelled almost 500 racing miles that night), and also the first race that went into the night. It was the first race this year in the WERC that had virtually NO yellow flags and NO full course yellows.
It was a race for the record books, and I just want to say THANK YOU to all those that made it possible, including our sponsors, Factory Five Racing, Mendeola Transaxles, Baja Designs Lighting, My Race Shop LLC, The Cobra Club of Salt Lake City, and all the crew that has done a fabulous job all year at putting a car on the track that was capable of winning races. Special thanks to Richard and Yvonne Migliori, and Jim Haussler as they work on this car EVERY DAY to get it prepared. Excellent efforts by all, and hopefully Team PDG can carry this momentum into this years final race, The 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

[fastthings]

Excellent! Lots of fun, I'm sure. Good show!!

[Erik W. Treves]

Great write up...fantastic job by all... very nice!

[GTM RACER]

Great write up Mike, I felt like was there beside you and the team watching the excitement!

[Movieman]

Excellent read! Congrats!

[WIS89]

Loved the recap. I felt like I was a passenger in the car. Very exciting race, and wonderful reward for the entire team. Congratulations!!

Regards,

Steve

[Pastenseverb]

I had the opportunity to drive that track this week and honestly, I don't know how you guys did it for 3/6 hours straight. Congratulations!
Here is the video if your interested;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apq2LYzFLMw