Road Atlanta Debrief: BENJAMIN FISCHER

"What could have been." While a popular expression and train thought for the usual sports reporter, these words are somewhat foreign to a racer's mind. In the end, the only thing that counts is the finishing order at the end of a race - or as was the case for us last weekend - at the end of a long racing season.

And "what could have been" is the theme that has followed us throughout the year. Often times a good run got spoiled by a silly mistake or an unfortunate turn of events out of our control. This past Sunday however, it was a driver error by myself, approaching the tricky turn five of Road Atlanta.

Carrying a bit too much speed, I hit the outside curbs a little too hard and steep, which unsettled the car and I lost contact with the racing surface. The consequence was a wild ride through the sand and a hard hit into the barrier, just on the outside of the corner.

We had a good race going up until that point, except for another "could have been" great pit stop and driver change. On his way to pit road, my team-mate Robert Cancian lost connection to the racing server due to a power surge at his home caused by inclement weather. Another half minute later and it wouldn't have mattered, since we were going to make a planned driver change anyway.

But this way, we ended up losing a lot of ground and lost a couple of laps. We immediately knew this would mean the end of a chance to a good, perhaps even top-five finish, that we had hoped for.

But six hour races are long. Six full hours, to be exact, actually! And to the casual reader who has not yet participated in a race that long himself: Six hours is a long time to be sitting in a race car, virtual or not. So, we knew we had to get going, because a lot of racing was still left.

Robert did a fantastic job during his opening single stint after qualifying our No. 84 BMW M Performance Parts BMW Z4 GT3 in eight place. And luckily the unfortunate turn of events during our first pit stop didn't cause any damage to the car.

So it was on me to carry on the torch and do my opening double stint. Things went really well and the car felt perfectly fine. I was off pace by the usual 1 to 2 seconds per lap, as I had grown to get accustomed to throughout the year, but I kept going. Racing in the DGFX WeatherTech SportsCar Series is about as competitive as it gets. Just participating was an honor for me all year long and presented a steep learning curve, as I'm trying to get better every time I leave pit road.

About that "getting better" part - with about 13 laps to go on fuel in my opening stint, on lap 85 exactly, I had that mental lapse in turn five I described earlier. While the pit stop mishap earlier was unfortunate, this all but should have killed our race off for good.

But these BMW's are built like a tank and despite the heavy impact into the barriers, I was able to get back to the pits without needing a tow from the tow truck and our pit crew did a fantastic job repairing the right front damage as best as possible within just about a minute.

So I got back under way for my second fuel stint, with a repaired car and a full load of fuel. The car didn't feel bad, but the dent in the hood made it very difficult to see the apex in right hand corners. And wouldn't you know it, once again I didn't get to finish my fuel run, because this time a full course caution came out with about 12 laps left on fuel. While it hurt us this time, these cautions are on the other hand one of the many things so unique and entertaining about this series.

Facing this unexpected new situation, we had to make a quick decision and opted to pit for fuel and four fresh tires. Unfortunately we had a problem with the team radio so Rob wasn't able to get ready in time to jump in the car. Still, I came in for the unscheduled pit stop under caution and we managed to complete the pit stop under caution. But the driver change we had to complete in another stop just as the green flag came out on the restart. So unfortunately we lost some more ground there. It's just been that kind of a day, but it didn't really make a difference to our race at that point.

Things settled down for us again quickly as Rob went out for his first double stint and he really put in tremendous lap times. In fact he put in the fastest lap of our race, period. The lap times were even faster than before our car suffered significant damage in my wreck earlier.

The track got so much more grip throughout the race, that it was really a lot of fun to race with these changing conditions in the second half of the race. But it was another one of those "what could have been" moments, when you think about what we may have been able to do with the car minus the damage from my earlier mistake in turn five. We may have been able to run lap times a lot faster than what we ran all weekend.

During Rob's stint, we received a warning from the race marshalls for ignoring blue flags, which we didn't really agree with at the time and that earned us some harsh comments from the broadcasting crew as well. But that's about the only drama we had to go through, as we approached our final driver change, where I took over for the final stint.

I can only say again, Rob did a great job in the car, as he has all year long. I couldn't ask for a better team-mate and of course you know how Candians are the nicest people anyway. So he did a great job to get us from tenth to eighth during his double stint. I think we also benefited from the misfortunate of some of our fellow racers.

But otherwise, once I took over from Rob for my final stint to take us to the finish, with our race pretty much being over, I just focused on bringing the car home in one piece (sort of) and not being in the way of anybody.

It was a long race and a long racing season. But it was worth every minute of it and I wouldn't change a thing. The good and the bad, it's all part of a unique experience that this 2016 DGFX WeatherTech SportsCar Series was. And hopefully we'll be back next year for more.

On a final note, I want to give a shout out to our fellow BMW competitors at 49 Motorsports for winning the GTD championship. These guys have been amazing all year long in that BMW Z4. Well deserved! And of course congratulations to the Prototype class champions vApex Racing Group, as well.

Of course, nothing, not a single race, would have been possible without all the racing series officials like Kyle and Ed and everybody else. So we want to say thank you to these guys especially, for setting up this unique and amaing racing series for us to participate in.

Here's to a refreshing off-season and hopefully we'll see you all at the track in 2017!