Damm. What a twilight zone kind or race this one was! I've never seen such consistently constant horrible conditions. It could have wrecked a really good race, except when it was good, it was so good that it made up for it. I think in the end the right car probably won, though Nazr sure gave the Whelon car a hell of a ride. Even in those conditions he and Jordan had a tight, clean battle that was great fun to watch.
Alonso was probably the man of the race, Instead of attacking and maybe rising a big accident, he was patient enough to keep the pressure on and wait for the right opportunity, and he got it. That's what eventually won the race for them. He was also blisteringly fast in the rain in an earlier stint. A close second would be Jordan Taylor, because he also handled the wet conditions brilliantly.
So, overall, it's annoying the conditions didn't let them race for the whole 24 hours, but IMSA made the right choice stopping it. It was still very much well worth watching though. Even a bad sportscar race is still pretty damm good.
Another good sign is that the yellow Caddy had a great run going until they went off in the rain, and the same for the Juncos car. That's two really good running privateers cars. Thanks to Cadillac for stepping and providing some cars.
I don't know what to say about Mazda except they are the masters of the epic meltdown. You might think putting the cars in Joest's hands would be the trick, but it's not playing out that way. If they don't pull one off soon I will be surprised. They were fastest at Sebring last year, so all they need is for nothing to go wrong there this time.
My only real disappointment is that I thought the Nissan was just biding it's time and having a terrific race until they hit gearbox problems. They recovered and were in position to challenge when Dumas stuffed it. They even fought back from that and were only four laps down at the end. If not for that they were looking at potentially fighting for the win. Fourth is a good result, especially considering they are essentially a privateer effort, but they could have had so much more. I guess if that's all the complaining I have to do it must have been a damm good race.
NBC virtually ignored the P2 battle. We will never know if it was good or not, because they didn't show it, more proof no one cares about a four car race, and we will probably lose the dragon speed car after Sebring. I think IMSA really needs to put them back on pace with the DPIs so they can race for the overall, and then give them their own championship. We don't want P2 turning into a super expensive PC class. If you are a privateer spending near DPI level money, you deserve a chance to win, or at least an equitable set of rules. I know I talk about this a lot, but every time sportscar racing fails, it's because no one looked after the privateers.
The worst part of the whole weekend is the torn up cars the teams have to deal with, and critically pay for. Some of those cars really got messed up and I hope everyone can pull it together for Sebring.
However, I don't want to end on a sour note. It really was an epic race. It was just way different from what we were expecting, but I fully embraced that and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yea, IMSA.
