SEBRING, Fla. — Fans practically contorted themselves to get the perfect “selfies” and random close-ups of Chip Ganassi’s two Ford GT cars on the grid awaiting Saturday’s green flag for the 64th annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Dressed in their finest Ford, Chevrolet Corvette and even Ferrari and Porsche T-shirts and hats, the crowd around Ganassi’s two red-white-and-blue entries was easily the largest on the starting grid. The curious and adoring fans examined the rear wing, peered into the car’s windows and asked crewman to pose for photos.
And there were audible bursts of “ohhh and ahhh” in various inflections and languages.
Unlike most race events, the fancy sports cars parked in the infield lots didn’t belong to the drivers or team executives, but instead to the highly devoted sports car fans who attend the famous Twelve Hours of Sebring dressed in Mark Donohue shirts with prototype car silhouettes on their cap.
NASCAR Hall of Famers Bill Elliott and Terry Labonte have competed at Sebring as have Ricky Rudd and Michael Waltrip.
While no former NASCAR drivers were entered this weekend, Sprint Cup team owners Ganassi and Rob Kauffman, who competed here with Michael Waltrip in 2012, were on hand to see their Fords compete in what is considered one of the world’s greatest races.
Ganassi’s team won this race in a prototype class car in 2014.
“The big thing is to get some distance in them,” Ford driver Joey Hand told the crowd Saturday. “But the cars look fast and they are fast.”
Going the distance is the big challenge. The brand new Ford GT EcoBoosts had a few hiccups in their Rolex 24 debut, but in all fairness, had only turned laps a couple weeks before the race during a massive test session.
It was a tricky debut at Daytona for the new cars, but the team is quite confident it has learned from the growing pains and repaired the glitches. They led laps and kept pace at Daytona and Saturday was all about increasing the performance further.
“The good thing about it all, and the thing we are pleased about, is the car is showing some pace, it is showing some opportunity, and overall we are happy that we have a fast car and we need to work on reliability,’” Ford Motor Company’s executive vice president, Product Development, and chief technical officer, Raj Nair said after Daytona.
“That’s a lot better than having a slow car that’s reliable, but you don’t know how to get speed out of it. Overall, this is racing and this is what can happen in racing. If we don’t win every race, we are disappointed, but at the same time we know how to fix our issues and we’ll be better the next time we come out.”
The whole program is a major undertaking for Ganassi, who has won Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500, Brickyard 400, Rolex 24 and 12 Hours of Sebring trophies already. But the quest is as sentimental as it is ambitious.
A win at the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans is the next great trophy Ganassi desires — and a victory there would certainly add to what is absolutely already one of the greatest resumes in racing history.
“I think it’s obviously something that’s been on our radar screen for a couple years,” Ganassi said standing alongside his car Saturday, enjoying the large and curious crowd. “It’s going to be a challenge and we’re hopeful we can put Ford forward the way they want to be represented. We look forward to it.
“The greatest events attract the greatest teams and the greatest challenges. That’s why we look forward to it.
“And it’s nice to go over there with an American company. That’s pretty cool.”