2017 marked the first time anyone had raced a Mitjet at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. The EXR Exotics Racing Mitjet Racing Team brought two Mitjet EXR LV02 cars to compete in E0. According to crew chief Bill Hynes, the team’s goals were to come out and have fun, and just to finish the grueling 25-hour race.
The Mitjet LV02 is French purpose-built rear-wheel-drive racing car powered by a 2.0-liter Renault engine mated to a Sadev six-speed paddle-shift transmission. The team entered both cars in E0, one of which finished the race on the podium in second.
That car was sponsored by Live, the rock band from York, Pa., that produced the eight-time platinum album “Throwing Copper” in 1994, which included the breakaway hits, “Lightning Crashes,” “All Over You” and “I, Alone.” But this isn’t the team’s only involvement in racing. The band also sponsors the No. 57 entry in Robby Gordon’s Stadium SuperTruck series. What’s more, through Hynes’ company United Fiber Data, they also sponsor Marco Andretti’s car in the Verizon IndyCar series.
All four members of Live are associated with the car, Hynes said. He and the four members of Live are business partners in other ventures.
“We love rock ‘n’ roll and we love racing. In the past four years, we’ve won three Indy 500s with Andretti Autosport,” Hynes said. “We really love racing. It’s a nice family. Chad Taylor (guitarist) will come out. If he wasn’t a multiplatinum guitarist, he’d probably be a racecar driver.”
