The 2019 iRacing Petit Le Mans is the final iRacing endurance event that D2D will compete in this year. The goal of the team was to gain experience and have fun - while those goals were met, there was some heartache as well. In order to meet those goals, the team decided to register in a manner to enter a lower split; the thought was there would be fewer DPi and GTC entries, which was correct. But looking at the iRating of the registered drivers and the practice lap times, it became clear that the D2D eSports Endurance team motto was indeed in effect:
"Guys, I think we made a mistake."
The team ended up in split 12 which was GTLM only, and had good pace in practice - but the track was much hotter than expected. As Bobby Childs was experiencing internet issues and was unable to qualify the car as planned, David Paton put the PROforma Elite Texas Graphics Ferrari 488 GTE into P12 for the start. Chris Thorman settled in for the first stint, relinquishing a few positions to over anxious drivers as it was too early in the 10 hour event to be taken out. However, the car became looser and looser over a run and finally came out from under Chris in T1. He got away with the solo spin, but accidentally backed into the wall and damaged the rear wing attempting to get back on track. Prior to the end of his first double stint he was punted into 10a by a driver not racing for position, relegating the team to P24.
Bobby Childs then took over for the first of two double stints, and began clicking off laps faster than all but the top 10 teams on track. Over the next 2+ hours, Bobby drove the car up to P15 and then handed off to David Paton for his sole double stint. David put on a clinic, with only the drivers in P1 and P5 running faster laps, and handed the car back to Chris Thorman running P10. Chris shook off the issues he had early in the event, and turned solid laps to move the team to P8. Bobby then took back over for the final run, but was unable to get his bearings in the dark; working to clear some drivers that were many laps down while he got settled in, Bobby clipped the curb in T1 and was t-boned in the driver's side door as he spun back across the track. After 27+ minutes of repairs, the team finished P25.
The team had a good outing all things considered based on the overall goal, but it was disappointing to have fought to the top 10 only to have it vanish at the end. There was some good racing, but a lot of the teams drove overly aggressive against cars on different laps. The performance of the car as the fuel burned off also raised some questions, namely how much worse it handle the section of the track from T10b through T11. The team will use what was learned to improve at Road Atlanta for the Ricmotech GT Challenge and for the 2020 iRacing endurance events.
