Sebring, Fla. (20 February 2023) – For ages, families have looked to escape the late winter cold with a trip to Florida in February. The SportsCar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) season-opener at Sebring International Raceway this weekend will give the drivers and crew of Jr III (“Junior-Three”) Racing the perfect chance to enjoy some summer temperatures, kick off the 2023 season of vintage racing, and hopefully head home with some new trophies.
The visit to the fabled Florida former airfield will see Jr III Racing fielding four cars for the season kick-off as the team looks to build on a productive 2022 season with a fast start to the 2023 campaign this weekend.
Marc Sharinn will return to Sebring with Jr III Racing for the fourth consecutive year, piloting a 2015 Dodge Challenger Trans Am. After competing for several years in a NASCAR Dodge Charger, Sharinn debuted the Challenger in the 2020 SVRA season opener, which saw him take home a class win as well as a second-place finish. The 2021 and 2022 seasons saw Sharinn score an additional three podium finishes in the Challenger.
Bill Glavin Jr. will pilot the No. 99 Jr III Racing BMW M2 CSR for a second year at the SVRA Sebring event. Last year, the New Hampshire native scored two fourth-place finishes in the Jr III Racing M2. Glavin has competed in the event since 2020, taking a victory as well as a runner-up result on board a 1973 BMW 3.0 CSL in his Sebring SpeedTour debut. Glavin returned for the 2021 season in a 1989 BMW M3, scoring two second-place finishes.
Jr III Racing’s stable of vintage machinery also includes the No. 76 1976 Ferrari 308 GT4 which will race in Group 12a competition in the MP1 class. The Vito Bigioni-owned and driven car will make its second appearance at Sebring, with last year’s debut cut short due to a failed head gasket. The Ferrari 308 GT4 most recently ran at Roebling Road during a Vintage Drivers Club of America (VDCA) event weekend, where Marc Sharinn posted a fast lap of 1:31.690 seconds during the feature race having been lent the car for the weekend by Vito.
“We started the year with our IMSA program at Daytona back in January, but the SVRA opener at Sebring is kind of the real kick-off to the racing season for a lot of folks,” said Billy Glavin III, owner of Jr III Racing. “It is a great tradition and even though the racing is very competitive, it is a bit more of a laid back event and you get to catch up with a lot of friends in the paddock. We’ll have a lot of time at Sebring this year between SVRA, the VP Fuels IMSA event, and then the 12 Hour, so we are looking forward to getting all of that started with a good event this weekend.”
The SVRA Sebring SpeedTour feature races will kick off on Saturday, February 25th, at 2:00 pm ET, followed by a second round of feature races on Sunday at 9:10 am ET. Feature races can be watched on the SpeedTour TV YouTube page (YouTube.com/SpeedTourTV) or live streaming on SVRA’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/svralife/).
