Editor’s Note: This story appeared in the March 2019 issue of SPEED SPORT Magazine. Some of the events that appear in this story have already taken place.
March means one thing to many sports car fans and partiers on spring break: It’s time for their annual pilgrimage to Florida’s Sebring Int’l Raceway to attend its historic 12-hour race.
Sebring is North America’s oldest road racing facility and it’s packed with history, but there are many new things being offered there.
The 67th annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Advance Auto Parts, one of the marquee events of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, runs March 16.
That series’ primary support division, the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, will stage its two-hour Alan Jay Automotive Network 120 on March 15.
But that’s not all on Friday’s card. This year, the FIA World Endurance Championship returns to Sebring for its first race there since 2012.
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That series’ top two classes are the Le Mans Prototype cars, which are closed-cockpit cars with no production minimum that run in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in Le Mans, France, each June. This will be the only time the LMP1 Prototypes, including the two hybrid-powered Toyotas, will race in North America. Two divisions of Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars (LMGTE Pro and Am) add their excitement to WEC too.
Sebring’s WEC race will be 1,000 miles or eight hours, whichever comes first. It will provide the color, drama and excitement of endurance sports cars zooming around the 17-turn, 3.74-mile road course as the sun sets and later through the darkness of night.
A significant number of fans come to Sebring to simply drink beer, let off some steam and party. They’re part of what makes Sebring special even if they have little knowledge about what’s happening on the race track.
For the true endurance sports car fan, this year’s offering is a dream come true, because in just two days they’ll get to see what many consider to be the best endurance sports car racing available anywhere in the world. The track is billing it as “Super Sebring.”
Working through the logistics to make this happen wasn’t a piece of cake, but the executives of the different series and the track pulled it off. Wayne Estes, president and general manager of Sebring Int’l Raceway, which is owned by NASCAR via IMSA Holdings, said it was “… the culmination of a lot of work and cooperation among all parties to produce the best possible event for the world’s sports car racing enthusiasts.
“The hardest thing about adding the WEC to the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours is that the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours already fills a very special weekend,” Estes elaborated. “Trying to carve out the time and space for an event the magnitude of the WEC event challenged all of us: Sebring, IMSA, WEC, FIA.”
It’s an exciting time at the Sebring circuit, which evolved from Hendricks Field, a World War II airbase that used to train B-17 combat crews. On Dec. 31, 1950, aviation and racing enthusiast Alec Ulmann promoted a six-hour race using the runways of the old airbase. The 12-hour race began in March 1952.
The pits were revamped in 1999, but the track surface still contains patches of both concrete and asphalt, and its bumps are always a topic of conversation. Although it’s flat, it’s a challenging track to start with, and the bumps add to the circuit’s physically demanding nature.
Former winners of the 12-hour race read like a “Who’s Who” of auto racing, and include names such as Mario Andretti, Sir Stirling Moss, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Al Holbert, A.J. Foyt, Bobby Rahal and Tom Kristensen.
The race is also famous for participation by celebrities. Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, James Brolin, Lorenzo Lamas, Steve McQueen, David Carradine and even Walter Cronkite have driven in it. McQueen almost won the race in 1970. James Garner was a car owner in the 1960s and attended the race regularly, but never drove in it.
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