Wrapping Up Mid-Ohio
And Looking Forward To Road America

Well, we’ve reached the point of the season where the action is coming at a furious pace.  Every other weekend is a race and to be honest the schedule is getting to be rather brutal.  But that’s what you’ve got to do when you want to have a series consist of the number of races that the ALMS has, but has to accommodate the rather massive Le Mans break in late spring/early summer.

So what did we see at Mid-Ohio?  To be honest, the race was a bit of a yawner.  It wasn’t that it was bad or anything like that, it was just a bit processional early on.  That may well be something that can be traced directly at the track, as Spencer Pumpelly pointed out.  “To be honest, this circuit is in need of some attention.  The grip level is pretty poor.  It has so many surfaces and patches; it’s almost like driving on dirt.  Yeah, it’s the same for all of us out there, but it just makes it more difficult to make any passes.  I think they really need to re-do the track – it would lead to better racing.”

That pretty much sums up what we saw.  I’m sure there were passes on track that were made, but it’s difficult at this point to recall many significant ones that were intra-class.  If it wasn’t for the different classes, the actual number of passes made may have been very low.

(As an aside, the conditions at Mid-Ohio really weren’t conducive to properly covering a race.  The jammed schedule of two hours of practice plus qualifying jammed into a window of less than five hours made the morning a bit frantic for all involved.  Then adding in the double 90’s of temperature and humidity with semi-functioning air conditioning in the media center, intermittent to non-existent internet access, no leader lights on the cars and confusing drive time regulations essentially made this one to erase from the memory bank.  They all can’t be great…)

Look at the final results by class.  P1 was not much of a contest again, but Guy Smith did what he could to keep it close to the Luhr/Graf pairing for Muscle Milk.  At no time was there a pass for position made in this class.  In P2, the class was effectively decided by the penalty Conquest received for blocking, leaving Level 5 to race to the win.  PC came down to Dalziel vs. Franchitti at the end and fuel pick-up and or low fuel caused the CORE entry to pit late, handing a well deserved win to the PR1 Mathiasen team.  GTC was decided or maybe not decided by the confusing drive time regulations, which are now different between classes.  In one way the win was earned by JDX, which took the checkered flag, but it was TRG that got the points.  Any way you look at that end result is confusing, but officially it was JDX taking a one-lap win.

In some ways, the most newsworthy event at Mid-Ohio was the Viper debut.  While it didn’t set the world on fire, it was really more than should have been expected for a debut.  Both cars made the finish and the #91 even scored points.  All in all a promising debut.  The speed will come – at least there was reliability to start with.

It was only in GT that there were really significant passes taking place.  Right now, the unofficial motto for the series has to be “thank God for the GT class”.  No disrespect to the others, but it’s almost gotten to the point where I’m willing to ignore the other classes to fully concentrate on what is happening in this one class.

This much we know: heading into the four-hour race at Road America, this GT class is probably one of the most balanced and competitive we’ve ever seen.  While the Vipers are not in the mix as of yet, we’ve still got at least six cars that are capable of winning on any given race.  That bodes well, not just for up in Wisconsin, but throughout the remainder of the season.

It appears as if the Corvettes may have the upper hand in the championships, but you can’t count out BMW.  Joey Hand and Dirk Muller are only 12 points back of the Gavin/Milner pair and are one point up on Magnussen/Garcia with four races to go.  Still with an outside chance is the ESM Ferrari pair of team owner Scott Sharp and the tremendously underappreciated Johannes van Overbeek.  van Overbeek has transformed his career from a part-timer at the Lizards to a legitimate star at ESM; just think what he could do paired with Guy Cosmo on a fulltime basis.  That would be a very competitive pair.

Reduced to the spoiler role for the rest of the season are the Lizards.  Their post-Le Mans results indicate they have come to proper grips with the Porsche and if they hadn’t have been disqualified at Mosport they’d be inching into contention, but it is not to be.  Falken is another Porsche team on the move.  They head to Road America with some momentum, courtesy of fine fourth place finishes at both Lime Rock and Mid-Ohio.

As far as BMW, the car may be somewhat elderly now, when compared to the other competitors, but you can’t discount the competitiveness of the Bobby Rahal-led team as they are once again in the midst of the championship chase.  They were strong at Road America last season, but the competition has moved on and the performance regulations have changed.  This would be a good place for them to make a move if they want to gain an upper hand in the championship chase.

For Corvette Racing, the season hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been pretty good.  If it wasn’t for poor results for both the #3 and the #4 (the #3 at Mid-Ohio and the #4 at Lime Rock), they could be well on their way to class domination.  But that is what makes the GT class work.  There are more entries than there are points-paying positions – it isn’t good enough to just make to the 70% race distance to score good points, you must finish well in order to get good points.

As far as points, it is completely the opposite in both P1 and P2.  Simply completing 70% race distance will keep you in the hunt.  That is both good and bad.  It makes establishing a points- lead difficult, but it also makes a comeback tough.  For a team to make a move, they need help.  They are reliant on hoping for bad fortune to smile on their competitor.  That is where Dyson is now.  Their pace was better at Mid-Ohio, but for them to make any inroads in the championship, they need something to go wrong at Pickett Racing, which hasn’t really been the case so far.

To be honest, if you take away the fuel port issue at Sebring and the gearbox glitch at Lime Rock, the season for Pickett Racing has been pretty boring.  For this team, boring works.  The shorter the press releases, the better the results.

P2 is in the same boat, although in this case it appears as if what may be the faster car is trailing in the points.  On track, Conquest appears to have a slight advantage, but thus far their race craft has been somewhat lacking.  They’re still a young team in sportscar racing and they’re learning – eventually they’ll pull it together again and get another win.  Will they do so at Road America, which is effectively the home track for Level 5?

In PC, CORE controls their own destiny as far as the championship.  It’s difficult to see a letdown like they had last season.  Essentially this class all boils down to pride now.  Which teams can up their game to challenge CORE?  PR1 Mathiasen have, as have RSR – are there any others yet this season that can challenge?

In GTC, the grid is much more full this time – eight entries are slated to start, which is much better that the rather weak entry at the last few races.  Hired gun Jeroen Bleekemolen steps in at AJR, in an attempt to keep Copper MacNeil moving ahead in the points lead.  His lead is up to 24 over the LeSaffre/Faulkner Green Hornet pair.  Making their team debut in the class is Truspeed, with Alex Figge partnering Tom Haacker.

With the ALMS being the headliner this time, the schedule will be much kinder this time around…

Gary Horrocks