The Western Endurance Racing Championship begins 2013 with a free-for-all at Sonoma Raceway

The 2013 endurance racing season kick-started with a two-hour enduro around the twisty and hilly Sonoma Raceway on Sunday February 10. Six different classes (ESR, ES, EO, E1, E2, & E3) hit the track to do fender-to-fender battle at a sizzling pace.

This race was a large departure from the last endurance race of the season, the 25 Hours of Thunderhill presented by the U.S. Air Force, in December 2012, where teams paced themselves to keep cars alive for 25 hours. At Sonoma, teams appeared to be running a two-hour sprint race, with lap times in the 1:50s, which is hauling the mail around the technical Northern California course.

There was a fierce battle for the overall win between two ES class cars, Team Prototype Development Group in their Factory Five GTM-R against Team Life’s Good Racing in their gorgeous red 2012 Camaro bodied Howe racing chassis. Both teams were running Chevrolet horsepower with one using a mid-engine setup (GTM-R) and the other the traditional front-engine arrangement (Camaro).

When the checkered flag dropped, the overall win went to Team Life’s Good Racing. However, after a protest and closer look at timing and scoring the win was consequently awarded to Team Prototype Development Group in their American flag painted GTM-R. Congratulations go out to the Prototype Development folks who have been campaigning their Factory Five car for many years in the WERC series and finally earned an overall victory.

In the E0 class, the racing was extremely close and it came down to the final lap with Navid Kahangi earning third place overall while taking the E0 class win by 26 seconds. Navid was driving his orange and black Track Concierge-sponsored BMW M3. Earning the second place spot another 26 seconds back was Team El Diablo Motorsports in their blue M3 Bimmer.

The ESR class was won by Ron Cortez driving a new beautiful Catfish CB01R, a car that looks like it could be driven by cartoon character Speed Racer. Ron finished with a solid 58 laps, just a few behind the overall event winner. It will be interesting to watch this car progress in the series as it is developed further.

The E2 class was won by Dean Mansour in his white BMW M3, one lap ahead of the second place finishing Team Brown/Heyer in their Spec Miata.

The largest class of the field was E3, which was won by a second-generation Miata driven by Gordon Jennings. Second place went to Andrew Kidd in his first-generation TrackSpeed Engineering Sponsored Mazda Miata.

The 2013 WERC Series will use points from each race in the five-event season, including the finale, which will be the mighty 25 Hours of Thunderhill. It will be interesting to see if the teams who were successful and fast for two hours at Sonoma can keep that sort of quick pace for a trip around the clock, plus one more hour. As the saying goes, time will tell.

Results

2013 WERC Schedule