We got the opportunity to experience one of the premiere road course facilities in North America this past weekend. George Barber invested over $50 million in the brand new Barber Motorsports Park and it shows. Budgets always make doing a project easier, and had other road courses had this same budget they would likely have the same world class facility. That being said George Barber assembled a wonderful facility located in NASCAR country, Birmingham Alabama.

Doing test day proved to be a very valuable investment for our team. We had talked with our friends at SpeedSource Race Engineering before the weekend. They had previously tested at the track and from their comments Barber Motorsports Park appeared to be a very challenging track. Learning all the undulations of the track was a very challenging process. Alan Wilson was put in charge of laying out the track for George Barber. Wilson did an excellent job of using the elevation changes to create a track that was both challenging and easy for spectators to view the action. From many points the fans could see the cars three times per lap!

On Thursday night we watched the local newscast for the upcoming weather. Amazingly we saw four different newscasts that all had coverage of the upcoming race at Barber. The promotion of this event was second to none. That promotion meant that on Friday, which was only practice day, there were fans all around the track! We had to restock our fan card tripods several times a day and at any point we had free time we could chat with fans at the trailer and sign autographs.

Qualifying occurred on Saturday morning. Joe was kept busy with back to back qualifying sessions. First he put the #41 Planet Earth Motorsports Porsche 911 in fourth on the grid in Grand Sports II. Then he turned around and drove the #42 Integra for the first time all weekend. He turned a competitive time and learned how the car reacted to the demanding track.

Will's co-driver, Howie Liebengood, adapted to the track very quickly. He pulled off his first pole position with the team in the #43 Pennzoil / King Motorsports Acura Integra LS. It was his first pole since last fall when he took the GSII pole at Watkins Glen.

The Grand Sports race was scheduled for Saturday evening. Scattered thunderstorms were the name of the day for Saturday and we weren't sure what to expect as the field took the green flag. Joe was starting the #41 and had moved his way up to third on the opening lap. On the twelfth lap our race almost came to a quick halt. As dad was entering turn five the #45 Firebird being driven by Frank Del Vecchio made an optimistic move on our car under braking and collided with the left side of the car. I saw the video from an in car film behind the hit and it looked like Frank was very optimistic trying to use Firebird brakes to make that move on the Porsche. Not surprisingly Frank disagreed with our assessment. The races from Barber Motorsports Park will be televised on May 31st from 1-3 PM on Speed TV so catch the action and you can decide for yourselves.

Frank then went to the next corner and came into contact with another car. It wasn't clear if something had broken on the #45 after contact with our car, but after the second hit the #45 was immobilized and we knew a full course caution was about to fly. At the same time dad was trying to fell out the car and make sure nothing was broken. As he was doing this the overall leaders were coming up to pass him and put him a lap down. Not knowing if the car would turn when he made it to the next turn Joe powered down the straight. Thankfully the car turned in and after the full course came out we were able to pit for new left side wheels and still stay on the lead lap. The Fikse's took a major hit but like a good race wheel they still allowed the Hoosiers to hold air.

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