Gian Gains Ground at Homestead
This year, Gian Bacardi has just one goal – to gain experience on the track. Toward that, he spent the weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway where he participated in a FARA race. There, he outraced everyone in his class, and even most of the faster class 1 Porches, to come in 3rd for the weekend overall.
A FARA race is kind of like a pickup soccer game for racers. Anyone can participate so long as they have a car built for racing. FARA races frequently see Porche GT3s, Mazda Miatas and BMWs like Bacardi's. Porches are very fast, but they're bad in the rain; this was bad for their drivers but good for Bacardi, because his car handles slick conditions very well.
Because of the rain, Gian started the race in his rain tires. At the start, he quickly pulled away from cars running in his class and within 3 laps had pulled ahead of the entire field, racer and coach Matt Plumb explains. After leading for the first 30 minutes of the one-hour race, Bacardi was forced to pit for fuel and change tires as the course began to dry.
While this longish pit time would have held back another driver, Bacardi's handicap was only temporary. He reentered the race still leading in his class but had fallen back to 7th overall. He made up the lost ground quickly, and in the last 15 minutes of the race charged his way back to 3rd overall and 1st in his class, a huge accomplishment for the young driver, Plumb explains.
Up next for Bacardi is still more training. But he hopes to leap onto the pro circuit next year. More on that soon!
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