TruSpeed Autosport claimed 2nd overall at NASA’s 25 Hours of Thunderhill! Our team fielded a Porsche GT4 RS with a driver lineup of Taylor Wolfe, Doug Le Bon, Alex Hainer, and Connor Bloom. It wasn’t our first time contesting this historic event, having participated a handful of times before. Tyler and the team were excited to be back with a great, reliable platform in the GT4 RS to try and go for an overall win.

On Thursday and Friday, the team got a chance to get acclimated with the circuit by doing some testing. We brought and prepared two other cars to get lots of track time without compromising our primary enduro car for the race. We were fortunate to have Connor Bloum on hand to help do lead-follow work and coaching to get some of our drivers more acclimated with Thunderhill’s 3-mile configuration with the by-pass.

Qualifying took place Friday night. Connor threw down a really fast 1:46.3 to get us second on the grid ahead of the Audi R8 LMS GT3 car and behind a road course prepped late model stock car.

We were treated to some beautiful Northern California weather in November. The green flag dropped with a clear blue sky! We settled into our pace and began clicking off the laps. We held onto second before getting passed by the Audi R8. We ran drama-free into the night, solidly in third. Unfortunately, we were hit by the second-place stock car at about 10:30 pm, which forced an unscheduled stop for some minor repairs.

At about midnight, a Miata lost its motor in a big way, covering the track in oil, which required a red flag for extensive cleanup. Oil dry was put down around most of the track, which made conditions quite treacherous for the next few hours. Alex was in the car during that stint and handled it like a pro. She was the fastest car on the track, while some of our competitors were much further off the pace.

Our crew handled a four-corner brake caliper, rotor, and pad change in the middle of the night without losing much time. We continued to cycle our drivers in and out, getting nearly 2 hours on a stint for tires and fuel. Our competitors in the stock car had some mechanical misfortunate that sent them behind the wall for an extended period, allowing us to take over 2nd place behind the Audi.

The car mechanically ran nearly flawless into the morning all the way to the checkered, where we crossed the finish line in 2nd place after 25 hours and 709 laps completed. Considering we were at a disadvantage on raw pace with a GT4 car trying to compete against a GT3 car, it was a valiant effort and an excellent finish for our program. Our drivers and crew did their job to be consistent in keeping the car clean for over 2,000 miles of racing. No easy feat! Our goal was to be there at the end and see what happens. We accomplished that goal and had a great experience participating in this special event again!

A big thank you to our partners Ironclad and Proferred Tools for keeping us well equipped throughout the race!