ALMS, Salt Lake City – Preview
Goodbye GT1, Hello ALMS Challenge Finally. Back to a real road course. Some way not appreciate coming to a race at Miller Motorsports Park, but I’m one that does. It is a first class facility, run with care. It has media facilities close to the competitors and just above pit lane, and it is also one of the rare tracks in which you can see most of the action unfold right in front of you. Yes, it could use a little landscaping, but when compared to the surrounding land, it isn’t all that bad. The facility is a fitting tribute to the late Larry Miller and his passion for racing. He did things right here. There aren’t many like him in that regards and he will be missed. Like last season, the ALMS race will be one of the rare Sunday races on the schedule, and for a change, there will be no shared billing here. The ALMS race will be the big one. No second class citizen status here. The cars take to the track on Friday afternoon. For the most part, it is the usual suspects racing, but changes have been made. A total of 23 cars are entered, of which five of them may be marked with asterisks. This is for the cars in the new ALMS Challenge, of which the only cars eligible are those that currently run in the Patron GT3 Challenge, or detuned GT3 spec Porsches. It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out and what direction this may take in the future. Many wanted full GT3 spec cars now, but to be honest, this is not the time to do so – it just wouldn’t work in the middle of a season. Climbing on to my soapbox for a minute here though, this is the format that I would have liked to see the Patron Porsche series take. Endurance racing with pit stops and driver changes – it wasn’t my decision to make and I’m sure IMSA had their reasons, but if there was a vote, I’d want the endurance part of racing added. This race is also different in that it is truly the first race of the post GT1 era. Corvette Racing is making their preparations for Le Mans and their later in the season GT2 debut. At St Pete, it was known that the ‘Vettes would make one last run at Long Beach. Now we don’t have that to look forward to again. It will also be the last race for Tim Mayer of IMSA, as he points his life in another direction. Good luck Tim and thanks for your contribution to the sport. LMP1 will see the largest entry since Sebring. Joining the usual cast will be Steve Pruitt’s hybrid Ginetta-Zytek 09SH. It is very much a work in progress for the Corsa team, but Steve felt it was important to have the car running for his home race. Johnny Mowlem and Stephan Johansson will be taking the wheel for the race here and should be with the car the remainder of the season. Up front, the battle for the championship will continue between Patron Highcroft and de Ferran, as the teams continue their fight to be the best Acura team. It’s been an eventful time for the drivers of the cars, as Scott Sharp has spent his last few weekends at Indy, where he qualified on Sunday for the upcoming 500. Meanwhile, Simon Pagenaud and David Brabham were at Spa, getting their first race taste of diesel power. It was more successful for the de Ferran driver, as he was part driver talent in the winning Peugeot, while Brabs and his co-drivers were forced to settle for a 12th place finish after his Peugeot was sidelined for a period of time with rear suspension problems. Currently, the Patron Highcroft team holds a 21 point advantage over de Ferran in LMP1. Last year, Miller was not kind to the Highcroft team, as accident damage dropped the team to a 24th place finish. de Ferran and Pagenaud celebrated their debut as a team last year with a very strong 3rd overall. Also competing in P1 again are the Lola twins of Intersport and Autocon. Last year we were treated to the sight of Jon Field leading early, taking advantage of turbo power at altitude, as well as a well timed Audi tow. Will he be able to repeat this again? We’ll see. Autocon will have Michael Lewis and Bryan Willman in their Lola. Expect a less aggressive pace from the pair, but they would love nothing better than getting a podium here (and beating the Fields). After Long Beach, it is apparent that LMP2 is about to live up to the expectations of an Acura vs. Mazda battle. Dyson made great strides on the street circuit and more is expected of them in the 4300 ft elevation of Tooele Utah, where a turbo can come in handy. So far, the battles have all gone to the Fernandez team with their steady and reliable pace, but Dyson has the Mazda Lola combination – will the altitude even further help their cause. While you wouldn’t expect a P2 car to win here like they did last year, any of the three of them could stick around to take advantage of possible mishaps of the leading P1 entries. GT2 is pretty much a repeat – it should be the usual battle. Rules tweaking should help out the BMWs and the Panoz, and we’ll know by how much once we see them on track. According to Tom Milner, the new regs will help level the playing field, as the Porsches are already running 25k less than the Le Mans regulations. As his Panoz was already the slowest of the GT2 competitors in a straight line, IMSA wanted to give them a break. As it is nearly impossible, or at least very costly at this point in the development of the car to take any further weight off, they received a restrictor break. The team also expects to take advantage of new Yokahama tires at Miller, as the company has continued development, based upon recent data. The Rahal-Letterman BMW team has just completed testing at Miller and at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, where the team concentrated on tire development with the partner, Dunlop. The regs changes for the M3 consisted of a larger diameter restrictor in exchange for 25k additional weight. The team hopes to build on their recent success at the street courses, where they have enjoyed consecutive podium finishes. So far, the usual class favorites have been towards the front. Expect the flying Lizards to continue to be there, as will Risi. For The Lizards, it will be the usual Bergmeister/Long in No. 45, but No. 44 will have Johannes van Overbeek back to partner Seth Neiman. To the Lizards, the set up of the cars will be critical and testing late last month gave the team a jump on the initial set ups. The team had a double podium finish last year and hopes for the same again. For Risi, they feel that the fast corners at Miller suit the well balanced Ferrari and they hope they have a good result. They have always run well in Utah and even though it is Pierre Kaffer’s first time at the circuit, he has proven to be a fast learner, as was seen at Long Beach. A win here would be a great send off for the team to Le Mans and also a big help in the points championship. The snake-bit team so far this year has to be Farnbacher-Loles. Fast at every race, they really don’t have much to show for it so far. With the team doing double duty this weekend (Laguna Grand Am) the usual driving partnership will be broken up. Wolf Henzler will share the Porsche with Marc Lieb. Nicky Pastorelli and Johannes Stuck will hare the single VICI Porsche this weekend. Also entered this weekend are the Robertsons along with David Murry in the Ford GT and Joel Feinberg and Chris Hall in the Primetime Viper. Unless further financial support comes about, this may be, according Feinberg’s column on SPEED TV.com, the last time we see the Viper this season. The weather forecast looks quite good for the event – not too hot, but no cold and so far, no wetness. Oh, as an aside, Russell filed a protest after Long Beach – rather fitting, concerning what happened at the track. Well, it looks like I screwed up. After traveling, I came home to find Russell had filed the protest. Seems he had actually called the winner correctly, not picking the Highcroft car like I did. Protest upheld. He's right and I'm wrong. Technically it's a tie, with both of us taking 3 of 4, but by the ground rules that Russell had established at St Pete, it looks like he'll take this round. Punishment for me? Oh, I don't know, what's suitable Russell? He thought a weekend in the desert of Utah. I’m fine with that… Gary Horrocks | 
