It’s difficult to win your class at Thunderhill. Just ask Dennis Holloway. It’s even more difficult when you have to stop for fuel every hour. Holloway’s RX-8 is not the most fuel efficient vehicle on the grid and it doesn’t have the largest fuel tank, either.
Nonetheless, Holloway and his team pulled off another win in E2 in the 2015 25 Hours of Thunderhill, and they did it with lap times some seven seconds quicker than their opponents and fielding a car that served them reliably for 25 hours.
“We made it with no penalties and no crashes, well, no real big crashes and it was a very good run,” Holloway said after the race. “The rain was rather challenging. I didn’t think the rain was going to come like that, but when it hit, I was on the intermediates and it was quite slippery out there. We got bumped in the middle of the night, had to replace a tie rod and had some electrical issues, but other than that, it was smooth sailing.”
Hot on Holloway’s heels was the HPD Honda Racing 1 team in its Honda Fit, which benefitted from an engine that had been breathed on and was within striking distance while it was in the race. However the Honda Fit suffered a mechanical failure after 157 laps, something the team could not overcome. Even with the retirement, team HPD Honda Racing 1 finished third in E2. Having already packed up and gone, the team was unavailable for comment after the race.
The retirement left Team Gone Racing to take second place. Team Gone Racing was driving the same car they drove to a third-place finish in E2 in 2014. This is the same car they had originally purchased as a parts car, then turned into a racer in the last couple of weeks before the 2014 race. The team’s recipe for success is simple and straightforward.
“We just raced clean,” said driver Eduardo Li. “We’re a really green team, with four of five drivers being rookies. We just had great leadership under Albert Butterfield. Basically we just wanted to keep it on track, not spin out, and take no penalties. With the rain, we tried to stick with the R888 tires as opposed to coming in and changing tires for the most optimal conditions. We kind of just tip-toed around and kept on clicking laps even though we were 20 seconds slower than the RX-8, but we were still on track. No body damage. No mechanical failures. It was 99 percent prep, and 1 percent execution.”
