Sebring HSR Races

Olly Bryant travelled to Sebring race circuit in sunny Florida in early March for the HSR meeting. He was sharing a 1965 Ford Mustang GT350 with his father Grahame.

Qualifying

This was the first time Olly had driven this Mustang, but he knew Sebring well from last year’s success there in the family Morgan +8. The car had several braking issues that needed to be worked on, but he set a decent time of 2m26.547s to line the car up 3rd in class.

Sprint Race

The sprint race contained cars in different classes so Olly was aiming to win the class and finish as high up the overall order as possible. Olly made a good start and settled into a rhythm as he was still learning the car. The braking issues from qualifying had not been overcome however, and under heavy braking, the rear axle would lock and judder causing the car to break away. This meant the car was tricky to drive hard in as soon as you pushed, the car would lock up and you’d risk going off the circuit or hitting another car! Olly managed to drive around the problem going slow into the turns and getting fast exits. He moved into the class lead and set a 2m23.524s lap, 3 seconds quicker than in qualifying! After 7 laps Olly crossed the line 7th overall land took the class win. A great result for first time out in the car.

Night Race

Olly had won the night race overall last year in the Morgan, but the Mustang was not capable of quite the same lap times. The race was spectacular as the grid of cars battled it out for 40 minutes into the night with glowing brake discs and flaming exhausts! Olly worked his way into the class lead with 3 laps to go and brought the car home 3rd overall.

Enduro Race

Olly was sharing the car with Grahame Bryant in the 3 hour enduro, but on the 3rd lap the oil pump failed and Olly had to shut the engine down. A great shame after such a promising weekend in the car.

Olly is due to race the car again at Road America in May so hopefully the brakes will be fixed by then and the car will be even quicker!