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Re: AMWEC '15 [next race january 3rd]

Welcome to Talking AMWEC, I'm Steve Hatch (name for sake of RP), alongside Sillyworld bringing you the biggest and latest news of everything that happens in the AMWEC. This weekend brought us the fourth race of first annual AMWEC, the 12 Hours of Sebring proudly brought to you HP Oils. Excitement filled the final race of 2015 as teams continued their previous battles from the race in Austin, with cars shuffling for position throughout the entire race.
The Sebring circuit is not as technical as some of the previous tracks thus far, nor is it as fast, calling for a more balanced setup between handling and speed. However, the rough track surface is known to give both the drivers and the cars a big workout both physically and in controlling the cars around some of the more difficult aspects of the course. Most of the track is only two too two and a half cars wide, putting an emphasis on choosing the right place to pass a car, or making for some very daring moves if a driver is feeling particularly confident.
Up front the Znopresk/Gryphon Gear duo continued their streak of dominance as their AGTE entry came in with a commanding overall first place victory, a whole eight laps ahead the second place car, and nine laps ahead of the next AGTE car being fielded by ACE Racing. The Zeus GT Spec was also the only AGTE car on the podium, with two AP1 entries filling out the rest of the overall victories. This race also proved to be a strong race for the AP1 class, as half of the top ten cars were AP1 entries. The podiums for each individual class went as follows:
AP1:
1. Alpha/Smooth Racing, 317 laps, 2nd overall
2. Sepang/Kraft Haus Technik, 316 laps, 3rd overall
3. NV810/Scirocco Racing, 316 laps, 4th overall
AP2:
1. Prima/Pragata Motorsports, 314 laps, 7th overall
2. Beta/Smooth Racing, 313 laps, 8th overall, 8th overall
3. Shadowbird/Komodo Motors/KSR, 310 laps, 13th overall
AGTE:
1. Zeus GT Spec/Znorpesk/Gryphon Gear, 325 laps, 1st overall
2. Exilus/ACE Racing, 316 laps, 5th overall
3. Banshee/Echo Motor Corporation/ERD, 315 laps, 6th overall
Further down the field the racing stayed intense, with everybody fighting until the drop of the checkers. The closest battle for overall position was between 13th to 17th position, all of whom finished with 309 laps, only 16 laps behind the leader, and 8 laps behind second place. At the line 13th and 14th position were only separated by seven tenths of a second in overall elapsed time, showing just how close and competitive these cars are.
Unfortunately, the continued shuffle of positions could not yield a better position for either of the Fox Manor or Pascal Union Works of England vehicles as they continued their unlucky stride of last place finishes. While speculation circulates about the possible cause of their poor performance, Vri404, the team owner for both teams, remains optimistic about the future, saying in an unofficial press release that "[the teams] are doing everything they can to improve the cars for the next season of the AMWEC, and plan to work very hard to finish the 2015 season off strong." As the struggles continue spirits are staying high at the back of the pack.
One team who is quietly and unexpectedly making their way up the leader boards are the Backfire Motors team fielding the Model X15 entry in AP1. With a rather slow and frustrating start to the season, the new team have begun to show their pace as they finished in 25th position today. After the race one of their drivers was reported on an interview as having said "We knew from the beginning that this was going to be a challenging season, with a new team and a newly developed car, but we remained positive. We're starting to get a better understanding of the car, hopefully we can keep this pace up as the season continues. 25th was definitely never a place that we were hoping for when we started the season, but we're trying our hardest and working with what we have." It will be interesting to see if their pace can continue throughout the season, as they may be a challenger for the mid AP1 pack later in the season. (This segment was probably biased, but I ran out of time to look that closely at all the previous races. Sue me. I'll do better next race. I have two days off in a row next week, I'll try to make more time for that race.)
I've been Steve Hatch, along with Sillyworld, and that concludes this weeks segment of Talking AMWEC. We hope you had a good holiday season and look forward to seeing you all in the new year for the fifth round of the AMWEC from down under in Melborne, Australia!
(Hope you all enjoyed this special edition of the post-race Talking AMWEC. There's a lot of interesting stuff I left out, and I apologize for that, but just like everyone else here I have a work schedule that comes first and foremost. I can apologize, but ultimately there's nothing I can do. I've made an offer to Sillyworld to continue doing the post-race summaries as much as I can when I have the time, but I'll leave that up to you guys to decide if you want me to stay or not. No hard feelings, I promise. I'll just judge you silently from the safety of my computer. This was also written at 11 at night, so sorry for any typos or things that don't quite make sense.)
Cheers - Racer13
P.S. There may be edits to this pending request via PM from Sillyworld, so be sure to check back over the next couple days for edits or additions.

"Racing is life. Everything before or after is just waiting."
- Michael Delaney
HP Craftworks
#1955013, Est. 1955