Sonoma Speed Festival 2019: Masters Endurance Legends USA

The More Modern Historics!

Race 1

Frieser Leads Prototype Charge to Sonoma Victory

This is an amazing group with many good drivers and cars. Kevin Buckler is here with his 2003 911 GT 3 RS he raced this car at Daytona in 2003 and won overall, beating out the entire field of cars. His very large trophy for that rare of feat is proudly displaced in his pit today. He qualified yesterday a respectable 6th of 11 entries.
Travis Engen is here with his 2005 Audi R8 LMP1, A stunning silver spaceship comes to mind. Steven Read’s beautiful (1989 Ferrari F40/LM) is actually setup for Silverstone but you’d never know it as Johannes van Overbeek drove it so beautifully in his Qualifying and positioned him at 7th. Johannes has spent the last year driving prototypes “all over the world.”

The afternoon 40-minute race including the mandatory pitstops of one minute stationary today, was won by Keith Frieser in his 2011 Oreca FLM09 with Spencer Trenery (2006 Daytona Prototype) coming in second and Travis Engen, who qualified 5th the day before, became third. Travis said “he has hopes of catching Keith in tomorrow’s race”, saying they have had fun dicing more than once on the Masters European circuits. Kevin Buckler, battling with the prototypes in his Porsche during the race, moved up one place, right behind James Hagan sharing his 2011 Oreca FLM09 with Chris Atkinson who finished in 4th place.

Tomorrow will be interesting.

Race 2

Frieser Doubles Up at Sonoma Raceway

This group of cars is racing the second 40-minute session today, a long time for vintage racing events as a rule, but, as these cars are built for long distance racing, they only compete for the longer hours sessions at Vintage Daytona or Vintage Sebring in the USA for instance.
It’s a treat for us to see them on the West Coast on the track and to hear these engines roar to life. With an open-paddock-spectators have the added value of seeing all the cars and drivers their pits up close.

On pole today was Keith Frieser in his 2011 ORECA FLM09, followed by Spencer Trenery in the Riley Daytona Prototype, and in fifth Travis Engen in the Audi R8 LMP1. Travis and Spencer traded places with James Hagan, who spun in the very beginning, in between and the results are Keith Frieser 1st, Travis Engen 2nd and Spencer 3rd.

Kevin Buckler followed in 4th which was a great result with the Porsche beating the Prototypes, then Johannes van Overbeek in the Ferrari F40/LM.

While the pit window was open Mark Mathis was unfortunate and had an incident on track which caused the safety car and a delay in releasing the pitting cars on the track again.

A great way to close out the Masters Historic Racing appearance in California with their Historic Formula One cars and these Endurance Legends type cars. Next stops – Road America in July and for the Monterey Car week at Laguna Seca in August.