Kabort's Skill Shines At A Pitch-Black Le Mans...

Kabort's done it again! Another weekend of sparkly trophies and bottles upon bottles of the bubbly stuff. Sit back as I rewind the clock back to the start of October - October 24th - 25th specifically (last weekend)

Saturday October 24th, 2020 (S4, W3)

The Endurance Le Mans Series landed at Le Mans - and, as per every round, Kabort was in attendance - and had quite the line-up

Aside from a handful of masked mechanics, there would be entrants that would be roaring down the rural French roads over the weekend.

Saturday would see the T2 car, fresh from its win at Road America, (not an American fly or gnat removed) as well as the K4 Car - unusually full.

Kabort T2 (Dallara LMP2)

Andy Jones (GBR)

Daniel W. Harris (AUS)

Kabort K4 (Chevrolet Corvette GTE)

Samuel Thurtell (AUS)

Berkley Cox (USA)

Daniel Weber (GER)

Kabort T2

Daniel would put in an impeccable qualifying of 3rd place - putting the Kabort car on the second row for the 6 Hour Race that lay ahead.

In an absolutely unbelievable recovery drive from both Daniel and Andy, they managed to crawl their way slowly but surely up the grid from last place to an astonishing 10th place!!! Both men were chuffed - and had every darn right to be! With the performance, skill and talent they showed after a potential podium-finish was wiped out from beneath their feet - this was certainly one to remember.

Kabort K4

Just as T2 did, K4 also had an astonishing start - from 37th on the Grid (14th in GTE Class) - they managed to get all the way up into P3 in Class with just over two hours...to go in an incredibly strong position - P5 with tyres 10 laps newer than the competitions'...but disaster was about to strike...

It's at this point that I'd make some joke about a mechanic leaving a nut or bolt in the engine-bay but this time? This time it was so tragic and heartbreaking I physically can't.

Daniel Weber's graphics card crashed...the team immediately towed.

Somehow the K4 Squad managed to keep the car in the Top 5 - even despite what had just happened. A 6th place finish was hugely, hugely commendable task - especially with Dan's computer going kaboof.

Sunday 25th October, 2020

Sunday...what a day Sunday was! Without much rambling - let's begin

Driving in Sunday's edition of the race were three LMP's running - Two LMP2's and - for the first time in a VERY VERY long time - an Audi R18 LMP1 Car!!!

Audi R18 LMP1

Max Thorne (GBR)

Adam J. Pearce (GBR)

Justinas Ribelis (LIT)

Q: 48th (12th In Class) R: 4th (4th)

Dallara LMP2 (K6)

Tijmen Berends

Spencer Kemble

Q: 12th (12th)

R: 2nd (2nd)

Dallara LMP2 (T1)

Jonathan Keen (USA)

Ken Kylyshbek (CAN)

Q: 32nd (21st)

R: 2nd (2nd)

Kabort K6 Race Report By Spencer Kemble

"We gridded p12 of 26 after Tijmen set a safety lap during for us during qualifying.

We started with Tijmen doubling (double-stinting) and at his first stop, he started to notice everyone was doing 9 laps per stint.

We were already looking good for 10 and tried to push 11 during the first outing.

Unable to do this, we ran the numbers and decided to keep with the 10 lap distance per stint as it required little to no saving on our part.

Double stinting tires combined with running an extra three and a half minutes per tank meant it was starting to look like we just might get by on a stop less than everyone else.

We were soon hopping closer to the lead near the end of each stint, and this even gave me my first Endurance Race Laps led (Yes, 6 in fact, hard to believe I know).

I did my best to not sacrifice too many positions Tijmen earned us each time out, and was able to get by with only two minor offs.

In the end our efforts were nearly enough, we managed to cross the line just a half a minute behind 1st for a solid 2nd place after 6 hours.

Cheers to Tijmen for coming back to the B-team for this event!!" Astonishingly, not a single Kabort car qualified in the Top 10 - making each one of their absolutely unbelievable results so, so much more rewarding - I'm running out of words on how incredible, unbelievable, astonishing - and downright batsh*t crazy what they all did during this race was...like, competitors on iRacing are not easy to beat - especially Class A drivers with thousands upon thousands of iRating to their name.

Each one of these men deserve a huge round of applause!

To get two out of the three entrants on the podium on one day - especially from as far back as they did, was honestly beyond my wildest imaginations - and is a true testament to what Kabort has come to!

Ken Kylyshbek, the young Canadian was making his debut for Kabort at Le Mans - and had never run with Jonathan Keen either and somehow, out of seemingly no-where they've managed to pull a podium. A huge congratulations to every single one of them.

It's currently 20:31 on Sunday of the following week - Monza is up next - it's known as the temple of speed - but who has the most of it?

Find out on the 7th - 8th November 2020 at Monza!!

An Interesting Perspective

It's interesting, I've been looking back into Kabort's past and I think Kabort is very much like a termite mound.

I do sincerely apologise, and do not refer to anyone as <this> but it's the only place it happens in the animal kingdom and I feel it's the only way to describe my feelings.

Termites use their "waste" to build their mounds/houses.

As a newbie, you come into Kabort as fresh waste, you're on the outside and loosely stick on - some even falling off. As time goes on, you solidify, and become a more structured part of the team and now the mound - or Kabort - relies on you. If you were to be remove a chunk of Kabort would fall away and fall down.

Kabort wouldn't collapse entirely, we'd just be disadvantaged without.

I apologise, but I'm going to take Lars Bachmann as a prime example.

Lars joined us in February 2020 - as fresh meat - or something else, if you will.

This came shortly after the AMG (Awesome Motorsport Group) Fun-Race Ex-Driver Florian Hundertmark hosted in preparation for the 12 Hours Of Sebring.

He came along with Peer Brennscheidt.

As stated before, he was new - new to the team, new to how we ran things - and I believe new to endurance - but don't quote me on that one.

Fast forward to November 2020 - If we lost Lars it'd be catastrophic - he's been a huge part of Kabort - a massive part even - one of the key members I believe - and if we lost him it'd not only be catastrophic, it'd be deeply upsetting too - the whole Kabort Crew have come to know and love Lars to bits - not least because because he (alongside Thomas Jensen) won Kabort's First Race.

So yes, an incredibly positive and heart-warming message wrapped in well...turd, basically - the weirdest, oddest and somewhat most insulting way of saying "the longer you stay around the more part of a team you are/feel"

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that any of Kabort is sh*t - or any of Kabort's driver's are sh*t or that we are a termite mound - we're not - and they aren't - I just tried to get an anology on my mind...out there....

Thank you for reading, and a massive congratulations and thank you to those who competed on this stellar weekend!