JDC MotorSports pilot handles challenging track conditions and battles young guns
TORONTO, ONT, CANADA – The Mazda Road to Indy event in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is one of the most popular on the circuit, as the northern race fans are passionate about their motorsports. JDC MotorSports’ driver Bobby Eberle traveled with the team last weekend to run on the 1.755-mile 11-turn temporary street circuit as part of the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires.
The 48-year-old competitor turned in his best performance to date, running wheel-to-wheel in the pack with the Championship class drivers, en route to winning the National category on both Saturday and Sunday.
The temp circuit layout in Toronto’s Exhibition Place is lined with concrete walls and features treacherous transitions between asphalt and concrete patches, and even with dangers of walking the fine line between controlled speed and contact with the wall, Eberle maintained his focus and brought up two great results.
“All street races are difficult, and all leave little room for error,” admitted Eberle. “But the Toronto circuit, which was already tricky, underwent some changes which resulted in the final three corners becoming much more difficult. A third of the Pro Mazda field crashed into the walls at some point during the weekend, so it would have been easy to just back off a little bit and play it safe. Instead, we had a major breakthrough and recorded some of our best results yet as a team.”
Despite the fact that the first practice session on Friday was almost entirely wiped out due to the time it took to clean up two different crashes, Eberle logged eight careful reconnaissance laps to set a baseline time for the weekend. The second practice was key to getting the proper driving line down and figuring out what changes would need to be made to the car.
Bobby dropped over four seconds off his initial time as he started pushing harder with each successive lap, pushing his limits and getting a better feel for the car. While his competition struggled and put themselves behind the eight-ball with expensive crashes, all as a result of pushing past their limits, Bobby maintained his focus on the plan that he and his team has developed for finding speed.
In qualifying, Bobby dropped another 1.5 seconds to start eighth for the first race of the doubleheader. In Race #1, every driver in the races were turning laps in either the 1:11s or 1:12s as their best lap time, which was a major step forward. Bobby got a stellar start to the race and ran great laps, finishing seventh. Bobby’s performances in the second race, held on Sunday morning, was even better, as he turned in his best start of the year. Eberle passed three cars and moved into sixth and held his position for many laps as he battled for position. The final result was an eighth place finish, but the key to the day was that Eberle stepped up to the next level of competition, running closer to the experienced young drivers he races each weekend.
Eberle will leave the concrete wall lined layout of Toronto behind, with positive experience gained, and will now focus forward on next weekend’s race at the picturesque Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Mansfield, OH. The purpose-built national terrain facility offers more forgiving runoff areas and will allow Bobby to fully leverage his newfound speed and confidence in his JDC MotorSports machine. The races is set for July 29-31 and Eberle’s friends and fans can watch the weekend sessions live on www.promazda.com or on their mobile devices by downloading the Mazda Road to Indy app from the Apple Store or Google Play.
DRIVER PERFORMANCE - BOBBY EBERLE
#13 PRO MAZDA / JDC MOTORSPORTS
TORONTO INDY – TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
JULY 15-17, 2016
Qualifying: 8th – 1:13.6069
Race 1: 7th
Race 2: 8th
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Twitter: @BobbyEberle13
Instagram: @BobbyEberle13
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About Bobby Eberle:
Dr. Bobby Eberle is a former aerospace engineer who then moved over to the world of politics. Dr. Eberle uses his experience and analytical training to present editorial views on current affairs to over one million email subscribers daily with updates on political news and commentary. Eberle has appeared on FoxNews.com's Strategy Room, MSNBC with Joe Scarborough, NBC Houston, and has been a guest on numerous radio programs including Sirius/XM Satellite Radio, Bloomberg Radio, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, Fox Radio and Dennis Miller. Bobby has a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Rice University, and was a former nationally ranked tennis player. Bobby competed in the 2013 Skip Barber Winter Series and finished 9th overall out of 75 drivers and was the Masters Class Champion. In the Skip Barber race series, Bobby had 1 win, 5 podiums, and countless Top 10s. He then turned his attention to the Formula Car Challenge where he finished third in the overall championship in 2013 with 3 podiums and 8 top-five finishes. In 2014, Bobby finished 16th overall in the Pro Mazda Championship and was the Expert Class Champion with 3 in-class wins. In 2015, Bobby finished 15th overall and was again Expert Class Champion with 11 in-class wins.