Longer Races Afford More Opportunity to Overcome Challenges
By David Phillips
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Midway through Sunday’s rainy and lengthy full-course caution, IMSA Radio commentator John Hindhaugh experienced an epiphany of sorts. Having previously voiced his preference for a complete race stoppage rather than have the field trundle around behind the safety car when conditions prevented safe racing, Hindhaugh allowed as how he was now fine with the field playing “follow the pace car” rather than parking in pit lane under a red flag, waiting for the track to dry.
“It is endurance racing, after all,” he said.
Indeed. The six-, 10-, 12- and 24-hour races of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship are just that: endurance races. Although a brief video of the on-track action of an endurance race and a sprint race would suggest there is little to choose between the two disciplines, there is in fact a world of difference between them.
Never was that clearer than during the TireRack.com Battle on The Bricks, when three of the four class winners overcame considerable challenges to make it to Victory Lane. Challenges that would have been all but insurmountable in a sprint race format. AO Racing came from the back of the 56-car field (literally, as the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R’s qualifying time was disallowed owing to a technical infraction) to win the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class. The similar Wright Motorsports Porsche also started deep in the field and went on to lead the final 84 laps on its way to the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class win. The victory was all the more impressive given that the No. 120 Porsche was a lap down to the class leaders at one stage. Likewise, the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 07 went down a lap and rebounded to take the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) win.
Had any of those cars faced similar hurdles in a sprint race, it would have likely been game over. Not just in IMSA, but virtually any other category of top-flight auto racing. Of course, pit stop strategy and the wild card of timely full-course cautions do afford teams starting at or near the back of the grid a chance to turn defeat into a place on the podium. But nine times out of 10, professional drivers, cars and teams are just too evenly matched to enable a car to simply “race” its way to the front from a lap down (let alone from 56th on the grid) in a sprint race format.
Less dramatic but equally telling are the sagas of the No. 66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3, the No. 2 United Autosports USA ORECA and the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3, which came home 26, 31 and 55 laps, respectively, off the pace of the overall winner. All three cars started the day capable of running competitively before suffering setbacks that effectively put paid to their chances of a strong finish. But, particularly in the case of the Multimatic Mustang that was damaged in a coming together with another car on the opening lap, the teams patched their cars back together and, eventually, returned to action.
Even those competitors fortunate enough to enjoy relatively drama-free endurance races inevitably experience ebbs and flows as they chase changing track conditions and adjust fuel and tire strategies on the fly to account for a witches’ brew of unforeseeable variables. To be sure, those same ebbs and flows are often present in sprint races, but not to the same extent as in endurance events. And where one miscalculation can spell disaster in a sprint race, endurance races afford competitors, if not wholesale do-overs, more opportunities to overcome setbacks and mistakes.
This is not to say endurance races are “better” than sprint races, or vice-versa. Each discipline has its own challenges and appeals. And one suspects Mr. Hindhaugh would still prefer a race stoppage over a lengthy caution in the case of a torrential downpour during a sprint race. But it is to say that a calendar composed of races lasting from 100 minutes to 24 hours is unique in the cornucopia of demands it places on competitors.
In the case of the endurance races, it affords opportunities to claw back a decent finish – and the championship points that go with it – should the racing gods serve up a curveball. Thus are the 10 hours of racing awaiting in the Motul Petit Le Mans finale a most fitting way to conclude every season.