SUPER SERING!

Corvette Racing takes a win in the WEC 1,000 Miles of Sebring but finishes Fifth in IMSA’s 12-hour race

- RICHARD PRINCE

Sebring International Raceway ranks among the oldest permanent road racing facilities in the world, and it’s the birthplace of American endurance racing. In 1950, the circuit was created at Hendricks Field, a World War II United States Army Air Force base where B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator pilots and crews were trained. The first Sebring 12-hour endurance race was held there in 1952, and for the past seven decades, the best teams, drivers, and cars from around the world have converged on central Florida in March to battle one another for one of the biggest honors in racing—victory in the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring.

This year, as in the past several years, sports car racing enthusiasts got a double dose of fantastic racing with the “Super Sebring” weekend. The FIA World Endurance Championship opened its 2023 season with the 1000 Miles of Sebring on March 17, and IMSA staged its second race of 2023, the classic 12 Hours of Sebring, on March 18.

As in 2022, Chevrolet is racing one C8.R in IMSA and a separate car in WEC. This year’s IMSA entry is virtually identical to last year’s, with Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor driving a C8.R modified to compete with GT3-homologated cars in the GTD Pro class. Chevrolet and race partner Pratt Miller have designed and built, and are currently testing, a GT3-spec Corvette that will debut at Daytona in January 2024. One thing worth noting is that this year Tommy Milner will join Garcia and Taylor for the long races, of which the Sebring 12 Hour was one.