Posted (08/10/2004) -
After a very nice four week break we returned to action at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course. We are based out of Canton, Ohio... just ninety minutes away from the track. Being so close to home we had nearly a hundred friends and family on our guest list for the weekend.
Action started for the weekend with a test day on Thursday. This weekend was both a Grand American Rolex Series race and a Grand Am Cup event. We had two Porsche GT3 Cups running in the Rolex Super Grand Sport Class and four Porsche 996s running in the Grand Am Cup Grand Sport class.
The Thursday test session allowed us to try all kinds of different things on our cars. We tried different cambers, shock settings, wing angles, and tire pressures. Pretty much everything we could think of, we tried. The frustrating but reassuring thing was that at the end of the day we ended up with the same set up we started the day with. Everything we tried didn't provide any additional speed, so the good news was that the set up we started out with must have been pretty good. Now we have to go back and rack our brains for additional ways to find speed.
Friday was the start of official practice. With running both series it is tough for the crew as one of the two series is always on track. In order to alleviate this situation, we have developed a crew that stays in the pits the entire time and another that stays back at the paddock to prepare cars for the next session.
The Rolex Series has a race this week on Friday at Watkins Glen. Because of that the Grand American officials scheduled the Rolex race on Saturday to allow the teams another day to prepare the cars for the coming race, a support race to the NEXTEL Cup. The Grand Am Cup cars will not be involved in the Glen weekend and therefore raced on Sunday.
With the Rolex race on Saturday, qualifying took place on Friday night. For the second straight race I scored the pole position in the #41 Orison Planet Earth Motorsports Porsche. Unfortunately in post race technical inspection we were found to be an eighth of a inch too low with one side of our front spoiler. The third place #36 TPC Racing Porsche suffered the same fate and both of us had to start dead last in the field. Joe, my dad, moved into the second place starting position as a result.
On Saturday we qualified for the Grand Am Cup race and ran the Grand American Rolex race later that night at 5:30 PM. Qualifying went well. Joe qualified the #43 Porsche 996 in eighth position. In ninth right behind him was Emil Assentato in our #40 Porsche 996. Emil and his co-driver, Nick Longhi, had adjusted their Porsche throughout the weekend to adapt it to their driving style and the ninth place qualifying effort in the 35 car field was proof of their work.
The Rolex race started at 5:30 on Saturday evening. The lack of the Ohio sun meant it would be much cooler, something I appreciated as I was running the entire 2 hour and 45 minute race alone.
Starting from the back of the grid, the first few laps were a challenge of battling through traffic while not putting the car at risk. We caught up to the first place Porsche within a few laps. From there I challenged the driver, Marc Bunting, for lap after lap. He handled the pressure quite well and it wasn't until some Daytona Prototype traffic passed us that the opportunity presented itself and I was able to make a pass on the twisty Mid Ohio circuit.
After taking first position we built up a sizable lead. When the first full course caution came out it was very disappointing as the entire field ate up that lead we had built with the #41 Porsche. I ducked into the pits for fuel and tires. We came back out in the lead but now we had some different drivers to deal with. Andy Lally, Jack Baldwin, B.J. Zacharias, and Jean Francois Dumoulin would all be finishing against our team. We also took this opportunity to put Will, my brother, in the #42 Porsche to finish. More on this later.
In the midst of the pit sto
|
