sebring

Sebring 2004

A race of steady progress punctuated by very few incidents – that was the good news of the first six hours of PK Sport’s 12 Hours of Sebring. Here's Alex Caffi just after the start.

The bad news was that the first incident to befall the #60 car cost the car three laps and two places. “The gear lever broke,” said a shrugging Hugh Plumb (after having climbed steadily up to seventh in the fiercely competitive GT class) and the second cost it a race finish, a suspected differential failure stopping the car out on track with Peter Boss at the wheel.

“I was just getting settled in for my second stint and got a box full of nothing going into turn 10. I brought the car back but it was all over.”

Hugh Plumb was understandably disappointed: “It was a good run while it lasted, I had a good double stint which was tough at times as my drinks bottle failed. The Pirellis were great, I’m getting used to them and to the team and I’m looking forward to the season with them.”

Robin Liddell was rueful on hearing the bad tidings: “It’s one of those things, these things can happen at a circuit as tough as this. It’s a real shame, we were going better than we expected we would.”

It was particularly sad news for Peter Boss’s father, here in pit lane to see the third of his sons compete in the 12 Hours of Sebring.

The luck for the #61 crew looked rather similar at the halfway point.

Alex Caffi was hugely encouraged with the car after a fast and steady first stint: “The car is good, our set-up and tyres are fantastic, the only problem we have had is that our top-end speed is not good, that’s just because of our bad luck earlier in the week (when the car inexplicably lost engines on two consecutive days)."

Having leapfrogged the #60 car during the gearshift replacement, the #61 car was up into the top 10 in the GT class when it was the victim of a rather overambitious overtaking move from the Rollcentre Dallara prototype, which damaged the front left hand wheel of the PK car and left the team needing to replace part of the front suspension.

The PK crew worked on the car in the pitlane and got the car back out into the race, with David Warnock at the wheel, and began what they hoped would be a run to the finish. Things were looking good and the car began to climb the order once again - until Alex Caffi found the gearchange stiffening in the 9th hour of the race. All too soon it was all over for #61, the clutch apparently failing and stranding the car in the pits. A brave run was over.

Tracy Krohn was philosophical: “I’d been told this race was very tough, and in terms of the level of competition it’s undoubtedly the toughest in the world for a GT car. I’d been told the standard was high but the driving ability out there is amazing. I was pleasantly surprised that the level of physical challenge wasn’t as bad as I expected – I guess the workouts helped!”

For PK Sport the 12 Hours of Sebring was over too soon for comfort, but it’s a tough race to start a long season of racing: a season which will take another eight race meetings in the ALMS, plus the Superbowl of sportscar racing, the 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans – a race in which the team already has a guaranteed entry.