Looks like you'll get your wish. Looks like they'll finish last of the cars still running. I don't think they'll make 70% though.

 

HOLY!! nice battle at the END (ferrari vs porsche)!!!! THAT MADE My DAY!!
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HOW TO ROLL A BLUNT

 

That indeed was one of the greatest racing finishes I've ever witnessed. Bergie should have run a tad wider at the end it was incredible.

At least the Mazda got 224 laps. Maybe they learned a thing or two about the car.

 

last year's finish was good too!, with the panoz and another car (i dont rmb too clearly), continue the tradition!
________
Sexbender

 

that sure was an amazing finish...i saw some mazda jackets but no cars, iguess they wee not getting coverage again...did they retire the cars? do you know if they will be in the 24 la man race?


next up 1st race for formula 1

 

no way they'll be, u have to be invited to 24hrs le mans... they'll only slow the field down there lol

so much racing today, i m watching F1 too, and then next week the SS RX-8 @ homestead!
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Park Royal 3 Condos Prathumnak

 

I was in contact with the team the whole race and basically as stated in the release from John D., after the first long stop to correct a set of issues, the team along with Mazda decided to treat the rest of the event as a test session.

So some of the long stops in the pits were just as if they were testing and gathering data.

The bad, well obvisiously they finished pretty bad, but the good is they ran the fastest laps of the weekend with about 3-4 hours to go. The team was also able to shake out a lot of small issues that will be addressed for the next round.

Yes, not having any testing time at all on the car killed them, but they did learn a whole lot this race. I think more embarrasing were all the problems the Porsches had.

My hats off to the team for a tough job and the finish. It's really hard to stay in race like this when things are not going well. Good job Mazda, and we hope to see bigger and better things at the next few rounds!

-Bern

 

Acura did awesome. Way to knock off Porsche! Those guys were ****** to me last year anyways.

 

they had very little testing, I fully expect to see the mada competitive in the next races, the car prove it was fast now is up to the team to make it relyable.

 

good to know, i love the speed channel. thanks for the update bern!

 

u love it only when they dont show nascar!
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The Cliff Condo

 

I was impressed with the car since its basically right out of the box with zero test time. Think it'll be a force to be reckoned with before the end of the season. Just like the RX-8 in the Rolex Series.

 

Well they've got a couple of weeks to dial in things a bit better and hopefully address any reliability issues that showed up. If they can do this then it'll be a matter of seeing what the pilots can do compared to the others in the P2 class. At least we shouldn't be dueling with the GT1 cars like last year. Still frustrates me that they didn't get more work done on the car earlier in the off season.

I was hoping the Flying Lizard team would take the GT2 win. Those guys are a cool down to earth group whereas I found the Risi team were a bunch of snobs last year.

What a day of racing the 12 hours followed by the F1 opener!!

 

Speed Channel makes me mad. I'm not just talking about the fact that they are really just NASCAR anymore either. They did broadcast most of the race. Sort of. The commercials were just as long as the actual race footage was. Literally half of the program was commercial. I want to see racing, not commercials. If you have to have them, why can't it be like sitcom TV in which you get a commercial every 15 minutes? That way in a 30 minute time slot you get 22 minutes of actual programming. Speed isn't like this. In a 30 minute span, you get 15 minutes of commercials. I love seeing racing but I will still never personally order speed for this reason and for the whole redneck inbred hillbilly no talent NASCAR favoring aspect of them. Speed sucks and it's the best we've got. That's sad.

 

i hate it when they interview the drivers... all they say is MICHELIN TIRES ARE GREAT!
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DEPAKOTE SETTLEMENT NEWS

 

I was recording mexico from my dish receiver to a VHS tape and imagine my suprise when I edid it and ended up with 1:20 of race, the rest was comercials, out of a 3 hrs race!

 

Hmm, I bet they were all Toyota commercials too!

 

thats because they are

 

Toyota and nascar

 

enjoy!!!

GT2 battle!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL2HF-sFLnc
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Lesbian Webcams

 

As exciting as watching it live!!!! That made the whole race for me!!


Thanks for posting,

-Bern

 

Final Race Results

1 2 P1 364 -.--- 1:46.730 259 Pirro/Werner*/(Biela) Running 12:01:14.838 1 Audi AG / R10 TDI
2 26 P2 358 6 Laps 1:48.335 251 Herta*/(Franchitti)/Kanaan Running 12:02:36.380 1 Acura / ARX-01a
3 15 P2 356 8 Laps 1:49.340 78 Fernandez*/(Diaz)/Martinez Running 12:02:07.849 2 Lola / B06-43
4 1 P1 353 11 Laps 1:46.634 247 (Capello*)/McNish/Kristensen Running 12:02:01.526 † 2 Audi AG / R10 TDI
5 7 P2 351 13 Laps 1:46.638 125 Dumas/(Bernhard*)/Castroneves Running 12:02:58.786 † 3 Porsche / RS Spyd
6 9 P2 346 18 Laps 1:48.684 254 (Brabham*)/Johansson/Dayton Running 12:01:42.619 4 Acura / ARX-01a
7 4 GT1 341 23 Laps 1:57.143 245 Beretta/(Gavin*)/Papis Running 12:02:19.696 1 Corvette / C-6R
8 3 GT1 341 23 Laps 1:57.012 239 O'Connell/Magnussen*/(Fellows) Running 12:02:37.559 4 Corvette / C-6R
9 16 P2 340 24 Laps 1:49.056 249 (Wallace*)/Leitzinger/Lally Running 12:02:53.700 5 Porsche / RS Spyd
10 20 P2 333 31 Laps 1:48.873 97 (Dyson*)/Smith Running 12:03:00.199 6 Porsche / RS Spyd
11 63 GT1 331 33 Laps 1:58.511 236 (Garcia*)/Halliday/Turner Running 12:02:17.181 3 Aston Martin / DBR
12 62 GT2 330 34 Laps 2:02.763 264 Salo/(Melo*)/Mowlem Running 12:03:14.439 1 Ferrari / 430 GT
13 45 GT2 330 34 Laps 2:02.916 189 van Overbeek/(Bergmeister*)/Lieb Running 12:03:14.641 2 Porsche / 911 GT3
14 37 P1 325 39 Laps 1:52.236 223 Field*/Field/(Berry) Running 12:01:22.661 3 Creation / CA06H
15 71 GT2 322 42 Laps 2:02.723 139 (Henzler*)/Liddell/Long Running 12:03:01.702 † 3 Porsche / 911 GT3
16 85 GT2 316 48 Laps 2:05.326 155 Ehret/Nielsen/(Werner*) Running 12:01:20.288 4 Porsche / 911 GT3
17 73 GT2 314 50 Laps 2:03.457 156 Tafel/(Farnbacher*)/James Running 12:02:51.510 5 Porsche / 911 GT3
18 18 GT2 313 51 Laps 2:04.100 217 (Kelleners*)/Milner/Rahal Running 12:01:30.323 6 Porsche / 911 GT3
19 27 P2 307 57 Laps 1:53.503 149 Lienhard/(Theys*)/van de Poele Mechanica 11:05:35.340 7 Lola / B05-40
20 24 GT2 305 59 Laps 2:06.352 74 Aucott/(Macari)/Wilson* Running 12:03:03.118 7 Ferrari / 430 GT
21 12 P1 303 61 Laps 1:53.777 244 Lewis/(McMurry*)/Willman Running 11:26:58.602 4 Lola / EX257
22 31 GT2 300 64 Laps 2:02.950 25 Bergmeister/(Enge*)/Gidley Running 12:01:24.468 8 Ferrari / 430 GT
23 6 P2 297 67 Laps 1:46.778 276 (Maassen*)/Briscoe/Collard Running 12:01:25.001 8 Porsche / RS Spyd
24 61 GT2 290 74 Laps 2:04.364 110 Krohn/(Jonsson)/Braun* Running 12:03:06.382 9 Ferrari / 430 GT
25 86 GT2 286 78 Laps 2:05.157 232 (Kox*)/Janis Running 11:13:06.351 10 Spyker / C8
26 21 GT2 275 89 Laps 2:05.093 137 Auberlen*/(Hand)/Kimber-Smith Oil leak 11:12:03.123 11 Panoz / Esperante
27 22 GT2 270 94 Laps 2:05.334 25 (Maxwell*)/Smith/Sellers Running 12:03:19.933 12 Panoz / Esperante
28 44 GT2 268 96 Laps 2:04.446 92 (Law*)/Neiman/Pechnik Running 12:03:06.019 13 Porsche / 911 GT3
29 10 GT2 252 112 Laps 2:10.107 191 Collin*/Herman/(DaSilva) Clutch 10:26:19.770 14 Porsche / 911 GT3
30 54 GT2 235 129 Laps 2:06.975 57 Pappas/(Borcheller*)/Basseng Suspensio 9:14:17.359 15 Porsche / 911 GT3
31 8 P2 224 140 Laps 1:50.059 125 Bach/(Devlin*)/Matos Running 12:01:17.113 9 Lola / B07-40
32 32 GT2 206 158 Laps 2:03.003 73 (Mediani)/Aguas/Lopez Fire 7:57:59.831 16 Ferrari / 430 GT
33 77 GT2 129 235 Laps 2:14.504 98 (Konopka)/McCormick/Casadei* Engine 5:12:17.606 17 Porsche / 911 GT3
34 53 GT2 64 300 Laps 2:09.477 4 Robertson/Robertson/(Luyendyk Jr*) Engine 2:30:54.265 18 Panoz / Esperante
† New race lap record


-Bern

 

-Bern

 

Wow, lots of hostility here toward the team. Remember a few things.

They did not have TIME to test the car, they only received it a few weeks before the race and had to get it shipped over here and through customs in time to even be IN the race.

The car had some issues, but nothing that should not be expected for a new car. They had throttle issues and had an oil line go, those are hardly huge issues that cant be straightened out.

Remember Acura has building these cars for almost 12 months now and had had a host of IRL knowledge to pull from not matter how much of a "new" package the LMP car is.

Hell, Porsche ran a whole freaking season and look at the issues they had.

The car, when running was running very respectably. They ran during the race and qualified at a 1:50, their best qualifying time last year was 1:56, so its already a huge improvement over the old package.

The Porsches are still in a class to by themselves in pure speed, they ran 1:56s while the fastest Acuras were putting down 1:48s and the Fernandez car was doing 1:49s.

Also, remember when it comes to time, while the Kumho rubber is getting better and better, NOTHING can hold a candle to the Michelins that the rest of the LMP2 field is on and many say that those alone can be worth 2-3 seconds a lap. So the fact that the Mazda can run within a second of the Fernandez Lola on Michelins is very impressive in my book.

So if you look at it this way, they are only a second off the Fernandez Acura running a similar chassis as the Mazda and they only had the car on track ONE time before this race, Acura has been testing their Lola for many months and already ran an entire 12 hour mock race with it.

As was said, with the issues early on, they treated the rest of the race as a test. I was there for several pit stops as they were changing suspension settings and working on the car with no intensity or aggression. Just getting the job done at hand, much like a practice pit stop.

While its a shame that some of the issues popped up, it bodes very well for the remainder of the year. I honestly dont see them challenging Porsche in outright speed at this point, not sure if Acura has that in them, but if they can run times right around the Acuras and pick up their reliability, they will be in good position to be a challenge this year.

Cars rarely go out and go 12 hours with no issues on their first try. Give the guys a break and I think you'll start to see some progress soon with the car. Now if the problems continue on a regular basis, then i'll be right there with you asking why they arent getting their act together. However, its far too early to think that will be the case just yet.

BTW, there are photos in the galleries at www.speedarena.com if anyone is interested.

 

Raceshooter, you raise some good points. I'll be the first to admit a lack of patience at times, particularly during the race when I've got "spectator adrenaline" flowing. However, while we all know that Mazda/BK is Not Acura/AGR/LFR/HR or Porsche/Penske (nor would I want them to be) it's hard for me to tolerate mediocrity when I see the level of commitment (i.e. whatever it takes attitude) going into these other programs. I'm pretty sure there's also some frustration left over from the P2 rotary program and how that was carried out.

At any rate there is much to feel optimistic about at this stage. By time I get to see them at Laguna hopefully they'll be close enough to kick them in the a_ _!

Thanks for the gallery link!!