{"id":459937,"date":"2003-07-01T03:02:08","date_gmt":"2003-07-01T10:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=106902"},"modified":"2024-02-20T09:43:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T09:43:15","slug":"imsa-champion-fermin-velez-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/imsa-champion-fermin-velez-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"IMSA Champion Fermin Velez Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2003\/07\/n2-200307-p1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-698600 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2003\/07\/n2-200307-p1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2003\/07\/n2-200307-p1.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2003\/07\/n2-200307-p1-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2003\/07\/n2-200307-p1-71x100.jpg 71w, https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2003\/07\/n2-200307-p1-293x410.jpg 293w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>Former IMSA World Sports Car champion and FIA WSC C2 champion Fermin Velez lost his battle with cancer on March 31, just four days shy of his 44th birthday. Velez started his racing career in British F3 in the late \u201970s, but rose to prominence when he won Spain\u2019s National Hillclimb Championship in 1982, \u201984 and \u201985.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Velez made the move to endurance racing in the FIA\u2019s C2 category for World Sports Cars where he won the championship in 1987 and 1989. From there he moved to IMSA where between 1990 and 1998, he scored 11 victories and 16 2nd places, including victories in the 1995 and 1997 12-Hours of Sebring driving a Ferrari 333SP. Velez also won the IMSA WSC championship those same years. Later in his career he focused on Indy car racing where he made several starts in the Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former IMSA World Sports Car champion and FIA WSC C2 champion Fermin Velez lost his battle with cancer on March 31, just four days shy of his 44th birthday. Velez started his racing career in British F3 in the late \u201970s, but rose to prominence when he won Spain\u2019s National Hillclimb Championship in 1982, \u201984 and \u201985. Velez made the move to endurance racing in the FIA\u2019s C2 category for World Sports Cars where he won the championship in 1987 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":817979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,255,18114],"tags":[18435,18105],"class_list":["post-459937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-culture","category-news","category-people","tag-people","tag-people-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>IMSA Champion Fermin Velez Dies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"IMSA Champion Fermin Velez Dies\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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