ALMS, Detroit – More Friday Notes
Corsa Zytek & Acura Announcements And More

First the good news – John Faulkner was released from hospital on Sunday after the Mosport race, spent the night in the area and drove home.  He will be OK, but the car isn’t.  It is gone. 

Intersport is looking into a new car and should have something ready to go for Petit.  Changes afoot?  It will likely be a Lola, quite possibly a coupe, as Richard Berry is intrigued with it; but powerplant?  Possibility of looking at a V8 Cosworth twin turbo?  We’ll see…  But they did say they intend to stick with P1 next season.

Yes, we just received confirmation of the Corsa Zytek program.  One of the worst kept secrets in the paddock is officially confirmed.  Johnny Mowlem and Gunnar Jeannette are scheduled to be driving the car at Petit. And Laguna, but the real intention is to be competing at Sebring in 2009.  That is when their real competitive journey will start.

The hybrid “KERS” system is still a work in progress and it is hoped that the team will be able to at least run it in a partial sense this season yet.  Mowlem explained that the system, as designed, will, say, take ten seconds of charging in braking to generate eight seconds of power.  It won’t be an always usable power source – it will be more like the push-to-pass system that was utilized in Champ Car.

Mowlem has driven the car, set up balance-wise as it would be with the KERS system, and said it is quite impressive and can’t wait to get started.  More on this later…

The second announcement was what everybody was waiting for.  What is Acura doing next year?  Short version – as expected, it will be de Ferran and Highcroft moving to P1 with a new ARX-02a.  Fernandez will be staying in the P2 class with an upgraded chassis, while the second team to run in P2 is still tba.  Specs of the P1 car were not discussed and would not be discussed, but Erik Berkman, President of HPD, said the car was quite fast on the computer.

As far as Le Mans, Berkman said there are “no plans for Le Mans as of yet; aspirations, yes, but no plans.  We have had productive talks with the ACO, but will make no commitments to racing at Le Mans.”

Leading the morning session was Marino Franchitti.  “It’s the first time I’ve led a session and it feels quite good.  Even if it was a wet session, I’ll take it anyway I can.”  He did verify that his Dyson Porsche is running the direct injection motor, but that he couldn’t really tell any difference, given the conditions.

There have, since the race at Mosport finished, been those that have been saying that Jörg Bergmeister was brake checked by the #73 Tafel car, which led to the later, nullified, pass by Dirk Mueller in the #71 Tafel Ferrari.  According to Bergmeister, “I’m not sure if that happened or not.  I was too busy driving and trying to keep the competition behind me.”

In the Tafel camp, Tony Dowe said he isn’t dwelling on what happened.  “What happened, happened.  We have another race to run here and some points to make up.”  From his smile, you can tell he has something up his sleeve strategy-wise for this race.

Also, on the Tafel front, Dominik Farnbacher confirmed that his ankle was better, after the pit incident at Mosport.  “I can’t really run very well, but I don’t have to worry about that.  I only need to drive, and that will be no problem.”

Gary Horrocks