The 13th running of the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill presented by Hawk Performance was dominated by the Flying Lizard Audi R8 LMS. They won by 35 laps and they did it on Toyo Tires. This is Toyo’s first overall win at the famed 25hr race and is a significant achievement for any tire manufacturer.
The team took the overall lead seven hours in to the race Saturday evening and never looked back. When the defending race champions from Davidson Racing had issues with their Norma, the Lizards took over the lead and were never challenged for the remaining 18 hours.
The rain and mist allowed the Audi R8 LMS benefitted to benefit from its awesome traction control, ABS brakes and choice of two different Toyo tire rain compounds to pull off the win at the 13th running of the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill. The winning entry was driven by Darren Law, Johannes van Overbeek, Guy Cosmo, Tomonobu Fujii and Thomas Sadler.
“Excellent run by the team,” Darren Law said. “The team is so good with this car and these long races. The Toyo tires were just phenomenal. We went from dry tires to wets, to intermediates and they performed great across the spectrum. We did what we set out to accomplish, winning in dominating fashion. Almost half of the race was run in the rain. The Toyo rain tire had us just hooked up. Their rain tire has a lot of grip which made it really fun to drive in those conditions.”
For those interested in the other classes, here are the top three by class at the 2015 25hrs of Thunderhill.
ES
No. 45 Flying Lizard Audi R8, 690 laps *overall winner
No. 3 Quick Racing Products, SuperLite SLC, 655 laps
No. 4 Prototype Development Group Factory Five GTM, 631 laps
ESR
No. 69 Gryphon Racing Praga, 626 laps
No. 10 CRE/Jackson Racing Wolf, 554 laps
No. 52 JFC Racing Wolf, 479 laps
E0
No. 30 El Diablo Motorsports BMW, 617 laps
No. 03 Edgle Last Minute Motorworks BMW, 607 laps
No. 61 RoadShagger BMW, 603 laps
E1
No. 0 Grip Racing 0 BMW, 615 laps
No. 95 Grip Racing 95, 607 laps
No. 42 THRW/Honda Racing 1, 601 laps
E2
No. 34 RDR Mazda RX-8, 570 laps
No. 32 Team Gone Racing, Mazda Miata, 535 laps
No. 12 HPD Honda Racing 1, Honda Fit, 157 laps
E3
No. 40 RAmotorsports40, Mazda Miata, 593 laps
No. 7 Augersmiles.com/New Rock Exchange, Acura Integra, 588 laps
No. 23 RJ Racing, Mazda Miata, 581 laps
NP01
No. 6 CLP Racing, NP01, 514 laps
No. 99 11/10ths, NP01, 30 laps