RACE: NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill
Seventy-three entrants started the NASA Thunderhill 25 Hour race under a cloudy sky that quickly turned from drizzle into rain, flooding many pit areas leaving little to wonder what the remaining long hours of the endurance race would be ...
Photo by: Jonathan Heiliger
Seventy-three entrants started the NASA Thunderhill 25 Hour race under a cloudy sky that quickly turned from drizzle into rain, flooding many pit areas leaving little to wonder what the remaining long hours of the endurance race would be like.
By 12:20 pm, a full-course double yellow became a red flag as cars No. 28 and No. 68 did a dance, taking them both out of the race at the Northern California 3-mile roadcourse.
Teams will converge at the Northern California facility on December 6th-7th, 2003, at Thunderhill Raceway Park. The 3-mile raceway is located about 2-hours north of San Francisco, in Willows, California
Johannes van Overbeek, one of the drivers for Flying Lizard, called the weather by saying that it would stop by 6:00 pm and remain nice thereafter. And just as he predicted, the rain came to an abrupt halt in Willows allowing the competition to really begin.
Throughout the day and night the No. 64 entrant of Glenn Yee and the Flying Lizard No. #74 traded between first and second with the 64 owning first for the majority of the race.
Glenn Yee's other car, No. 26 also made a frequent play for second place providing little reprieve for the Flying Lizard team.
With little light on the track outside of the hot pits, drivers ran into the night dependent on what additional lights they rigged to their cars and used the brake lights of others to guide the way.
Naturally with the rain during the day, the track at night provided two options, follow the line and have a dry, clean track, or try to pass, go off-line and drive through the mud.
By sunlight many bumpers and mufflers appeared missing off of most of the cars, leaving no doubt who went off-course during the long night hours.
By 9:30 on Sunday morning with the sun out, 52 cars remained in the race along with the continued muddy conditions on the track.
25 hours later the checkered flag dropped on Glenn Yee's team driving to the start/finish line side by side with No. 64 finishing in first ahead of the second place No. 26. Due to earlier mechanical issues, the Flying Lizard team squeaked out the final podium spot, 8 laps behind the leader.
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