Kabort Owns October: A Dream Weekend After Tough Start
Over a month Ago, (37 Days to be exact), Season 13 for season 3, 2020 wrapped up, all the fun toy were put away, and it was time to get down to some serious racing.
Season 4, 2020 would mark Kabort's One Year Anniversary of entering the Endurance Le Mans Championship, so hopes were up - but prior to this, there were a few Special Events compete in! The first (of two) was the Intercontinental Sim Racing Challenge, a highly-competitive endurance racing league for those who have 1,500 iRating and above utilising the LMP1, (new) Dallara LMP2 car as well as the entire roster of IMSA GTE cars, testing even the most skilled of Racing Drivers. Below is the ten-race calendar that Kabort's finest would be up against
21/09/2020 - Robin Off To University
26/09/2020 - 8 Hours of Spa & Bathurst 1000km (Kabort Korea Finishing 14th)*^~
17/10/2020 - 6 Hours of Nurburgring
14/11/2020 - 6 Hours of Monza
05/12/2020 - 1500 miles of Sebring
16/01/2021 - 6 Hours of Road America
13/02/2021 - 6 Hours of Interlagos
13/03/2021 - 6 Hours of Twin Ring Motegi
10/04/2021 - 24 Hours of Le Mans
*Bathurst 1000km Kabort Bronze Team: Jay An | Kyle Jeong | Ho Chul Shin | Yun Min Choi | Dong Gyu Kim ^ Arron Brown would do this event with "24 Hour Racing" and get a DNF in one, and a 4th in the other. Kabort would do the endurance race(s) on this weekend
~ Did I mention The Kabort Truck was finished on this day?
ISRC 8hrs Spa
Qualifying
After a short and brief discussion, it was agreed that Ex-Driver Twan Van De Beld would drive for his own (ex-team, now) team, Sonic Racing.
Kabort would qualify their LMP2 car 16th in class, (18th total, with x2 LMP1's on overall pole) whilst the GTE entry would start from 20th - Sonic's Twan Van De Beld qualifying 0.301 seconds slower than us in 21st.
Other familiar faces on the grid included RSR Esport - Once Kabort's "father" team, where we stemmed from.
Race
It was a race to forget for Kabort's GTE entry, as bent steering on lap one, followed by a T-Bone and rear-end shunt quickly put them out of all contention and the race... It was down to the LMP squad....
They were fortunate enough to bring the car home in more pieces than the GTE was in finishing in a respectable 14th in class after a tough day out.
After one race, the standings are as follows:
The next race is on the 17th October (this coming weekend) and with Kabort being slightly lower in the standings than they would've liked, it's all about playing catch-up for the rest of the season. Team Sonic (now "Keyboard Racing") is also on 0 Points - this should play out to be a very exciting rivalry!
Petite Le Mans - October 2nd - 4th 2020
WELCOME TO OCTOBER!!! THE SPOOKIEST MONTH OF ALL!!!
As I always say, a new month brings new opportunities and thus far in October, this couldn't be more true!
The last endurance race special event of 2020 was the Petite Le Mans on the 10th October.
The 10 hour race held at Road Atlanta was an absolute success for both of Kabort's entries - an LMP2 being planned too, but later scrapped due to prior commitments from one of the drivers.
Porsche 911 RSR GTE (K1)
Lars Bachmann (GER) | Tim Perry (GBR) | Max Thorne (GBR)
Q: 13th (32nd Overall) R: 7th (20th Overall)
Chevrolet Corvette (K2)
Berkley Cox (USA) | Daniel Weber (GER)
Q: 13th (32nd In Overall)
R: 12th (26th In Overall)
10 hours later and the Porsche 911 (K1) car finished in a remarkable P7 whilst K2 (Chevvy) finished in P12 even after an engine explosion tried to hamper their progress - it was a great day!
Endurance Le Mans Series (S4, 2020)
The Season 4, 2020 season kicked off on the 26th and 27th of September at Sebring. Despite the inaugural race of the ISRC as well as Bathurst was on this weekend, we still managed to have a pretty impressive three entries - two LMP2's and a singular GTE and the drivers of these cars were:
LMP2 (K3)
Justinas Ribelis
Robert Land Q: 7th R: 10th
LMP2 (K6) (Same Split As K4)
Tom Van Den Pol
Spencer Kemble Q: 14th R: 14th GTE (K4) (Same Split As K6)
Samuel Thurtell Berkley Cox
Q: DSQ R: 7th In Class (23rd Overall)
Back in Europe, Truswell annoyed some French residents by "hooning" a V8 Supercar around - even when he was the only competitor - giving him and Kabort a dominant - pole, fastest lap and race win.
The following race that followed this was Circuit Gilles Villeneuve - which as fun as a street track is, it's not quite the same peculiarity that Le Mans Offers. Melbourne, Adalaide, Circuit Gille Villnerve, Detroit At Belle Isle (27th Oct) and dare I say it a bit of Mount Panorama - offer a "different slice of the same cake" - tight, technical, sudden turns, no runs offs...tightly packed. I'm not saying these tracks are easy or anything, just that they offer the same type of racing, but with V8 Supercars which don't traditionally go to Le Mans (in sim on in Real Life) because it's 90% or so flat out - it's a unique challenge - and I think it being on the same weekend as Petite and me entering a late race (past 21:00) was the perfect combination of pure silence and not a soul wanting to race - it's like arriving at a hotel swimming pool to find yourself the only one there - a secret success...
Endurance Le Mans Series Round 2: Road America
The second race of the Endurance Le Mans Series really deserves its own blog, but, already with UniBlog, I don't want to create any more spin-offs. For us, Road America was absolutely massive - from the cars entered to the results we got, to what happend after - Road America could have been turned into it's own "KABORT: Drive To Survive" episode it was that wild.
The weekend started off with a massive road-trip carrying all the trucks and gear from Sebring to Road America - a road trip-crossing 4 states and taking over a day, passing sites such as Road Atlanta, Indianapolis, a town called "Gary", Lake Michigan and more!
Some may wonder why we didn't just load the cars on a plane and fly them over - and despite having access to a DHL plane or two, we would not have seen the beautiful country that is the United States - taking the slow lane really allows you to take it all in...plus trucks use up less fuel/money than planes do - saving us money, and the environment an extra plane in the sky - lecture over.
It's within this gap where I inform you that due to a certain sequence of events, which I shall not go into detail due to the circumstances which followed, which we ended up with a few more individuals than we did - the individuals involved we will simply refer to as "SRRS"
Saturday 07:00
The 07:00 saw a hive of activity - not just from Kabort, but from quite a fair few other drivers too..
From Kabort, the first to hit the track was the dynamic duo of newbie Daniel Harris (hire