How the Team Battled Back from Three Laps Down to Place Second at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen June 27, 2023By Jeff OlsonIMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It was so impossible that it felt like a victory.If you missed the end of Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, you missed a rally that will linger for some time. Madison Snow, Bryan Sellers and Corey Lewis brought the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 back from three laps down to finish second in the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class.On paper, a second-place finish doesn’t stand out. But paper doesn’t account for circumstances.After the team’s first pit stop, Sellers lost radio contact and noticed other electrical issues. He brought the BMW back to the pits, where the team used the car’s built-in failsafe features to override the issues. Back it went, three laps behind, with the full support of a group of people who wouldn’t give up. “I really thought our day was over,” Snow said. “But that shows you how strong the team is that we didn’t do that. We wanted to stay out there and figure out what the issue was and finish the race. It took us a bit to figure it out and get it fixed, but we did it and we kept fighting all day. It’s super easy to give up in those times, but this team didn’t.”After the long pit stop, the improbable rally came down to pass-arounds, wave-bys and fuel saving – a strange combination of luck and sharp strategy – that got the No. 1 BMW back in contention.“Once we got back on the lead lap, we had a car that was obviously strong and we could race with,” Sellers said. “We basically waited all race to get back on that lap. Once we did, we were in a position to battle and a position to fight.”A day later, team members were still buzzing about the feat during a tire test Monday at Watkins Glen International. “It shows our guys’ mentality to stay in it and keep fighting and not give up,” Sellers said. “It would’ve been easy to accept that we would be down laps and just cruise around. But they didn’t ask us to do that from a driver’s perspective. They asked us to continue to push and stay in it and to stay locked in.”Snow drove the final stint, saving enough fuel that the team was able to avoid a late-race pit stop and outrun the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) and co-drivers Jan Heylen, Ryan Hardwick and Zacharie Robichon to the finish. The improbable outcome proved the team’s mettle. “It’s a program you want to be a part of,” Sellers said. “That’s the kind of mentality you want to be involved with.” Afterward, team manager Mitchell Simmons received praise for the fuel-saving strategy to avoid an additional stop.“Everyone applauded us for the strategy, but to me it’s undeserved,” Simmons said. “When you have the 10th-fastest car, of course you’re going to make that strategy call. We had a really, really good car, and we were able to overcome one heck of a challenge.”The challenge included a moment when almost everyone in the PMR pit wondered, “Should we surrender?” That moment was brief.“You go through a brief amount of time where you think, ‘The race is over. We’re two laps down.’” Sellers said. “But that mood passed pretty quick. Everyone was thinking, ‘We just need to find a way back to the lead lap,’ but we were getting pretty far into the race without getting back on the lead lap.”At that point, the podium seemed an unlikely conclusion.“Everyone was thinking, ‘Man, is this going to happen? Are we even going to have a chance?’” Sellers said. “To claw our way back was a huge relief for everybody. We turned what could have been a terrible day into a pretty good day.”What could’ve been a throwaway finish, laps deep in the field due to a mechanical issue, instead became a rallying cry about a rally. A little bit of luck, a little bit of planning, and a whole lot of perseverance led to a positive outcome. It also kept Sellers, Snow and the No. 1 BMW atop the GTD standings, 104 points ahead of the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 that won the race.“Everything just kind of fell into place,” Simmons said. “It was good that we didn’t have to battle the (No.) 16. We would not have had enough fuel to be able to do it, but they were in fuel-conserve mode and we were in fuel-conserve mode, so we were able to make our stop a little bit before we wanted to and were able to run to the end.”In the end, the second step of the podium felt like the top step. |
