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Le Mans / ALMS
IN THE COCKPIT: Andy Lally, Sebring ALMS
If you keep a bucket list of races to go to, this should definitely be on there. Television doesn’t do it justice… you may go for the race, but you live for the party...
Andy Lally joined Flying Lizard Motorsports for the 60th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. (Photo: LAT)
If you keep a bucket list of races to go to, this should definitely be on there. Television doesn’t do it justice… you may go for the race, but you live for the party.
Nestled in the middle of Florida, somewhere between the Orlando and Miami airports, it’s one of those classic old racing towns whose population triples when the races comes in to town. Being mid-March, and in a fairly remote part of the state, this is the ultimate spring break party for the locals. If I wasn’t driving, I’d probably be sitting on one of the countless pickups with a couch mounted on the bed; spending 10% of the time watching the race, the other 90% staring at… well, you get the idea.
Prior to last year (where my NASCAR duties took me to Bristol), I’d run every race there since 2001, and in a number of different classes… that’s 10 years straight! I’ve run everything from LMP2, to GT, to GTC, and every class brings a different challenge. The course is actually fairly straight forward; turns 1 and 17 are the only ones which you really have to suck it up and hold on, but it’s the bumps and surface changes that give it so much character.
They’ve deliberately kept the same surface since the circuit acted as a WWII Air Force base, and I’ve never driven two cars who’ve handled it the same way. Higher downforce cars take the bumps much harder and make it difficult to maintain ground clearance, lower downforce GT-cars tend to wildly shift weight between the turns and the bumps. It’s what makes this track so legendary, because it really separates the men from the boys as you put together a perfect lap. After driving it for 10 days, it also sucks.
So far, my career highlight at Sebring is 2nd overall in 2008 when I drove with Dyson Racing in the LMP2 Porsche RS Spyder. It was a great run and one of my best memories, not only because of the finish, but because of the chance I had to drive such an awesome car with such a historic team.
This brings us to 2012. New team, new car, but another awesome opportunity. Although my commitments for the year are with Magnus Racing in the no. 44 Porsche GT3 Cup car in the Rolex Series, I will also be running select events in the no. 44 Porsche RSR in the American Le Mans Series with one of the most storied sportscar teams, Flying Lizard Motorsports.
First of all, the opportunity to run with “The Lizards” is amazing. Team Owner Seth Neiman has done an amazing job over the last decade forming the team. They have three drivers’ championships and two team championships (all consecutive). They also have one victory at Sebring, a trophy currently missing from my trophy case.
Secondly, I’ve actually never raced an RSR. No one believes me, but all of my Porsche wins in GRAND-AM have been in Cup cars and production 911’s.
The purpose-built RSR produces a lot more downforce, a different wheelbase, and several other little bits that make it much faster than what we run in the Rolex series. In many ways, this made me a newbie to this kind of car, and when you have teammates like Patrick Long, Joerg Bergmeister, Marco Holzer and Darren Law, you have no shortage of talent to draw information from.
You hear a lot of horror stories about drivers who won’t share information, or think that I might be too proud to ask for help, but neither could be further from the truth when it came to this team. I actually won the Rolex 24 with Joerg and Pat in 2009, and Darren and I were teammates dating back to 2002 on another team.
I’d never met Marco before, but he’s actually very impressive to work with, and very professional. Regardless, everyone was more than happy to share data and information as I got up to speed, and I had no shortage of questions and pieces of data to go over. It’s a really impressive team dynamic.
Nestled in the middle of Florida, somewhere between the Orlando and Miami airports, it’s one of those classic old racing towns whose population triples when the races comes in to town. Being mid-March, and in a fairly remote part of the state, this is the ultimate spring break party for the locals. If I wasn’t driving, I’d probably be sitting on one of the countless pickups with a couch mounted on the bed; spending 10% of the time watching the race, the other 90% staring at… well, you get the idea.
Prior to last year (where my NASCAR duties took me to Bristol), I’d run every race there since 2001, and in a number of different classes… that’s 10 years straight! I’ve run everything from LMP2, to GT, to GTC, and every class brings a different challenge. The course is actually fairly straight forward; turns 1 and 17 are the only ones which you really have to suck it up and hold on, but it’s the bumps and surface changes that give it so much character.
They’ve deliberately kept the same surface since the circuit acted as a WWII Air Force base, and I’ve never driven two cars who’ve handled it the same way. Higher downforce cars take the bumps much harder and make it difficult to maintain ground clearance, lower downforce GT-cars tend to wildly shift weight between the turns and the bumps. It’s what makes this track so legendary, because it really separates the men from the boys as you put together a perfect lap. After driving it for 10 days, it also sucks.
So far, my career highlight at Sebring is 2nd overall in 2008 when I drove with Dyson Racing in the LMP2 Porsche RS Spyder. It was a great run and one of my best memories, not only because of the finish, but because of the chance I had to drive such an awesome car with such a historic team.
This brings us to 2012. New team, new car, but another awesome opportunity. Although my commitments for the year are with Magnus Racing in the no. 44 Porsche GT3 Cup car in the Rolex Series, I will also be running select events in the no. 44 Porsche RSR in the American Le Mans Series with one of the most storied sportscar teams, Flying Lizard Motorsports.
First of all, the opportunity to run with “The Lizards” is amazing. Team Owner Seth Neiman has done an amazing job over the last decade forming the team. They have three drivers’ championships and two team championships (all consecutive). They also have one victory at Sebring, a trophy currently missing from my trophy case.
Secondly, I’ve actually never raced an RSR. No one believes me, but all of my Porsche wins in GRAND-AM have been in Cup cars and production 911’s.
The purpose-built RSR produces a lot more downforce, a different wheelbase, and several other little bits that make it much faster than what we run in the Rolex series. In many ways, this made me a newbie to this kind of car, and when you have teammates like Patrick Long, Joerg Bergmeister, Marco Holzer and Darren Law, you have no shortage of talent to draw information from.
You hear a lot of horror stories about drivers who won’t share information, or think that I might be too proud to ask for help, but neither could be further from the truth when it came to this team. I actually won the Rolex 24 with Joerg and Pat in 2009, and Darren and I were teammates dating back to 2002 on another team.
I’d never met Marco before, but he’s actually very impressive to work with, and very professional. Regardless, everyone was more than happy to share data and information as I got up to speed, and I had no shortage of questions and pieces of data to go over. It’s a really impressive team dynamic.
Monterey
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