ALMS, Baltimore Grand Prix - Race Preview

Well, yes.  It looks like the race in Baltimore will happen.  Even mother nature could not do what some of the locals wanted to do, which was to stop the race from happening. 

Times are tough out there, so to pull off a new street race in these times is actually an amazing feat.  Despite, or in spite of,  all of the obstacles, you’ve got to hand it to the group putting the race together – it looks like we’ll have a race this weekend in Baltimore.

For one last time this season, the ALMS will share a venue with Indy Car.  Share might not be the proper way to state it, depending on your feeling about these events, but this we know.  The ALMS will stage their 7th race of the season on Saturday evening, which will be held to a typical street race short format of 2 hours.

On track, this race is a great unknown.  Nobody really knows what to expect.  Will it favor anybody?  Nobody really knows.  This we know – the track is rough, plus being a street circuit, it will be unforgiving.  After that it is a crap shoot that will likely favor the better organized teams, as long as they have some luck or fortune with them.  You can plan as much as you want, but you can never plan for the errant traffic that happens to do the unexpected and the completely wrong time.

Up front, the normal 4 cars will be competing in the LMP1 class.  It will be difficult to top the battle that we saw last race between Cytosport and Dyson, but there is no doubt that each team will be giving it everything they’ve got. 

By virtue of their 4 wins and the 4 point margin per win, Cytosport has reduced the 30 point hole they left Sebring with down to 18, with 3 races yet to go.  Dyson can take the Championship by finishing second at every race, but you know they are not settling for that.  They know that one dnf will likely cost them their points lead.

With Lucas Luhr off in GT1 land, the team brings in Audi/Porsche Factory driver Romain Dumas for the race.  This will be a difficult task for the Frenchman, as he not only needs to learn the track, like everybody else, but he needs to become familiar with the Aston Martin in short order, as track time is as usual, short at the shared event.

In GT, Risi got the monkey off of their back at Road America – is it time for the Flying Lizards to do the same?  The Lizards have had excellent results at street courses and Pat Long seems to thrive on them.  Remember, he was establishing the Lizards as the team to beat at Long Beach, only to tangle with traffic while leading.  Another advantage for the Porsche teams is that they are again running at a different weight – this time 15 kg lighter than they were at Road America.

This class almost has too much good stuff.  Any of probably seven cars are capable of winning here – that in itself is fantastic, but we’ve also got a points battle going on, effectively between BMW and Corvette that may go to the wire.  It would likely have been ensured of going to the wire if Corvette racing hadn’t faded late at Road America, but the margin is still manageable with 3 races left.  Mueller/Hand have a 22 point cushion over Gavin/Mags, but the Corvette guys need to be watching their backsides – Auberlen/Werner are only 6 points behind them.

Absent this race are Robertson Racing.  They’re giving this race a bye, citing their lack of set up experience for street courses.  That may be a part of the part of the answer, but you can be sure that both cost and fear of damage on the street circuit is weighing on their minds.

LMPC is heating up drastically.  Thanks in part to their second place finish at Road America, Genoa and driver Eric Lux are only 7 points back of the Core Autosports pair of Jeanette/Gonzalez.  The last 2 races have really hurt the class leaders as they have only been able to get 5th and 4th place finishes in the last two races, after getting 2 wins and 2 second place finishes in the first 4 races of the season.

Rejoining the class after being absent most of the season is Ryan Lewis, who is rejoining the PR1 Mathiesen effort, after a strong but ultimately disappointing effort at Sebring.  "It's great to finally be getting back out there. After having our race at Sebring ended by the fire when we were in such a strong  position, I want to come back strong at Baltimore and bring home another well deserved win for the team at PR1."

“I have always enjoyed the level of commitment required to be fast on street courses and the narrow margin for error. The racing is always interesting because of the nature of the circuits making working through traffic and passing tricky in places.Street courses tend to be  places that reward those willing to put a lot on the line"

In GTC, the points battle is coming down to a Black Swan vs. TRG fight.  Tim Pappas is sitting all alone at the top, because his regular co-driver Jeroen Bleekemolen has had clashes with his other drives.  Jeroen is back again, as the team hopes to build their cushion on the very fast pairing of Duncan Ende and Spencer Pumpelly in the TRG Porsche.  The current cushion is 11 points, but with the three races remaining, that really isn’t a very significant cushion at all.

With no Grand Am race this weekend, Magnus Racing continues their hectic summer, by rejoining the ALMS at Baltimore.  Unfortunately, it appears as if the tight confines of Baltimore have scared off some of the competitors – there are only 6 GTC entries for this race.

The event will be a very short one for the ALMS.  A two-hour practice on Friday morning will be followed by qualifying in the afternoon, with the race falling late in the day on Saturday.  Track walk for the competitors will take place on Thursday.