Datum: 15.12.2012 · Sonstige

Win at the 25 hours of Thunderhill

Pierre Ehret and his Motorsport Solutions/ Ehret Winery Team archieved a convincing win last weekend at the longest sportscar endurance race in North America. At the 10th edition of the 25 hours of Thunderhill (Willows, CA) the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup of Ehret, Memo Gidley, Christian Bollrath, Tyler McQuarrie and Anthony Ward received the chequered flag first after 679 laps, winning over 68 opponent teams on the 2.866 mile long circuit. They defeated a late charge of the Davidson Racing RCR-Eagle that lost its chances of winning 30 minutes before the race end after being stationary for a while on a curb after contact during overlapping.

Finally Ehret was groggy but happy about such a sweet end of a season which was more difficult in the FIA-WEC than expected. „At the end it was our mechanics-crew that saved our win. We had a drive-shaft failure short before the end and the crew fixed that in just 10 minutes, so that we were still in the lead for Memos last stint. But some of the guys have ALMS-experience as motorsport Solutions consists of many people from Flying Lizzards crew. For me this was the best result here as I was also 2nd 3 years ago. In the last 2 years I did not take part in the race but the offer to join Motorsport Solutions and especially Memo Gidley, who is a local hero here at the track was very convincing.“

The win of the team did not come easy in the start, althought Motorsport Solutions had the best endurance-material available with their 2 Cup-Porsches. The 2nd car finishd as 17th after some technical problems. And also Pierres Crew had to overcome some penalties, an accident and the final issue with the driveshaft, as Pierre explained. „This race here is a very special experience. It is one of the last big endurance challenges for amateur drivers in the USA. There is a rising interest in this race, which is manifested by the 70 participating teams this year. Maybe it could need some more Porsches or GT3 as most of the field consists of touring cars and saloons like BMW´s or Mazdas. Racing with 70 cars on a 2,8 mile circuit is definetly a challenging experience. Especially in the night on this circuit with no additional lights to help you, the majority of the corners – were some of them are blind– need your full concentration. Christian for example is very experienced in racing at the Nordschleife, also with up to 200 cars in the darkness, but the traffic here brought him to his limits. Nevertheless I hope that also next year some more teams from the Nürburgring may be interested in running this event in California. “