The Sports Car Open Endurance Series (or SCO as it is more commonly known) is one of the premier endurance leagues run on the iRacing service and is organised by CoRe SimRacing. The series takes place across 6 rounds and entries are limited to a few pre-invited teams with the bulk of the grid taken up by teams good enough to have pre-qualified at the end of August.
Team Buschfink Racing managed to qualify a car in each class of the series, with TBR Blue in LMP1 (Porsche 919) , TBR Yellow in LMP2 (HPD) and TBR Pink in GTE (Porsche RSR). The 3 cars would line up for qualifying at Spa full of expectation and nerves.
As is becoming the norm with TBR and big races, TBR Blue would have a few issues during Quali, with Tom Michelmore not setting a lap until quite late in the session, a lap good enough to place them 8th on the grid of 15 LMP1 cars. In LMP2, Fraser Williamson’s lap of 2.02.999 placed TBR Yellow in 10th of 15 cars in class and finally, the Flying Finn, Antti Ahola, would set a lap of 2.11.953 which was good enough for 13th of 23 GTE cars. Come the start, Tom’s hardware issues continued meaning that new recruit Michael Loosen would take the start (as well as a clean pair of shorts), with Antti and Fraser starting for the GTE & LMP2 fields.
Come the start of the pitstop cycle, Michael had worked his way up to 5th, although an offtrack excursion would drop him back to 9th, pitting in 8th…however he would leave the pits in 5th before handing the car over to Tom at L42 in 2nd place. Fraser’s first stint was a bit of an up and down affair (some might say he has “mair baws then brens”) containing a few offtracks as well as a disconnect which dropped him 3 places before eventually handing the car to Corey Ott on lap 68 having gained a good few spots. Unfortunately, 10 laps later Corey’s (convict) internet would drop out causing the car to take a tow and drop the team down to around 14th in class. James King, with the reactions of a (Garfield shaped) cat, jumped in to the car and the HPD boys would continue driving for a final finishing position of 12th in class, being promoted to 11th after the finish. Not the finish they had hoped for, but some decent points on the board.
The Porker of TBR Pink under the right foot of Antti Ahola was having a pretty steady race, handing over to Barry Morrison on L54, Barry would steer the car consistently in the top 15 GTE’s before handing to Lewis Goodway on L81. Sadly for Lewis he would be tackled by an LMP1 car just before half distance jettisoning him and the RSR in to the barriers causing enough damage that the team would choose to retire the car on L94.
Meanwhile, in LMP1 Tom had managed to maintain TBR Blue’s top 3 position before handing the again handing the car to Michael around the 84 lap mark. With consistent driving, the pit cycle would rotate with the car in 2nd place before issues for the lead car of Thrustmaster Mivano’s Tommaso Carla promoted Tom to the lead, a position he would maintain through another driver swap. Michael would continue to maintain the lead until L180 where an unsighted GTE would collect the 919 at the bus-stop chicane, causing suspension damage to TBR Blue and requiring a 2 ½ minute pitstop and relegating the car to P3.
However, the excitement wasn’t over just yet. With Tom at the wheel, a small contact with one of the HPD’s with around 25 minutes remaining had the effect of knocking approx. 20kph from Tom’s top speed. The number 24 car of Team Chimera under the steerage of Joshua Chin in P4 would seize this opportunity to drive out of his skin, gaining approx. 2-3 seconds a lap on Tom, finally catching him with just one lap to run. Coming in to the bus-stop to take the white flag, top locked up and Josh reacted…sliding the car slightly off-line where he was collected by a following HPD. This gave Tom just the gap he needed to maintain an excellent finishing position of 3rd.
So all in all, a mixed bag for TBR. A race full of what-if’s and could have been’s, the server didn’t play the best with a few of the top teams being effected, however sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But with that said, all the drivers concerned, the back room boys, the team principals and the team plebs (me…) should all be encouraged by the performances. You don’t get to P1 in an SCO race based on luck alone. Onwards and hopefully upwards to Monza in 4 weeks time.
Congrats to all the class winners:
Radicals Online JRT in LMP1
AVA Vervatic in LMP2
Pure Racing Team for GTE
and Thanks to the guys at CoRe SimRacing for putting on the event.
Results are here.
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