ALMS – Road America - Generac 500 – Race Morning
Pre-Race News
© Russell Wittenberg

Somehow Russell’s pre-race text got lost in the ether somewhere. Ed.

Team Trans Sport missed qualifying with a right rear upright and wheel bearing failure. Instead of trying to complete the repairs under duress, to make qualifying, the team decided that starting from the back on new tires was the better option for the four hour race. Owner/driver Tim Pappas is happy with their progress so far this season and their decision to join the ALMS. He knew this would be largely a learning year for them, being a new team unfamiliar with the 997 and the Yokohama tires.

Tim Pappas: “Certainly being on the podium in our first season would be a real boost for the team, and we had a legitimate chance at Lime Rock until the contact with a Ferrari (Eric Helary). But we have been mechanically strong and consistently finishing races. It’s all been really to prepare ourselves to contend for the championship in 2008.”

The team has already placed its order for a 2008 model 997 which apparently will be substantially updated over the ‘07 version. The plan for ‘08, which Pappas says in 95% in place, will be to run two cars, one with a pair of paid professional drivers and the other with Pappas and another pro. “We’d like to have a fast veteran, like Terry, teamed with a young fast guy in one car and another veteran and myself in the other,” explained Pappas. “The one car team really suffers when it comes to development of the car. I love the compressed schedule of the ALMS race weekends, but if you have a problem, like we did this weekend, and miss the practice time, you’re dead in the water.” Although they have been off the pace this weekend Pappas is still optimistic about the race. He is very comfortable at this track, having scored podium finishes here twice in the past, once in Speed World Challenge and once in Grand-Am Cup. They feel they can race well by staying out of trouble, out of the pits and posting consistent lap times. Another note of interest about the Trans Sport car is the driver’s seat. GM was kind enough to loan Andy Pilgrim to the team to help with the car during winter testing at Sebring. Pilgrim and the other drivers agreed that the factory supplied driver’s seat in the new 997 left much to be desired. In Porsche defence, the 997 is the ultimate customer race car and the seat must be made generic enough to fit virtually all body sizes. WIth Pilgrim’s influence, and a visit to the cockpit of the Corvette, the decision was made to have Pratt & Miller install the complete driver’s seat and safety structure from the Corvette into the Trans Sport 997. The installation was done at Pratt & Miller’s shop and needless to say is first class. The fixed in place seat is wrapped in a steel tube cage with fully padded leg protection. “I’m so glad we did this, it’s wonderful,” says Pappas. “With dual safety nets, adjustable attachments for the harness and the Hans device and fully enveloped seat, it’s not only very safe but ergonomically better. The seat holds you in so completely that you can really relax.”

The #44 Flying Lizard of Law and Nieman started the race at the back, alongside the Trans Sport entry. Darren Law missed all the practice sessions while competing at Watkins Glen, so per the rules the team would have had their qualifying time disallowed anyway, since all drivers must set at least one official timed lap prior to qualifying. The team decided that starting from the back on new tires was also the better option for them.

The #45 Flying Lizard pair was disappointed with their qualifying effort and felt the problem was an underperforming motor. A new flat-six was installed and they were extremely happy with the car after the morning warm-up. Johannes van Overbeek made these comments: “Yesterday to do a 2:08 you had to be a hero. This morning a 2:08 was no problem so we are very happy with the car now.”

Intersport has been fighting a porpoising condition on the Creation all meeting. They feel they have uncovered an issue with the chassis that could be the cause, and possibly the source of the difficulties they have faced with the car all season. They are reluctant to make public their findings until they can properly research it away from the race track, and also consult with Creation. Temporary fixes have been made and they are still hoping for a good run here, but they are very optimistic that Mosport now could be a huge step forward for the team.

Kevin Doran had some interesting comments about working with the Maserati and also his rapidly evolving GT40 project. “The Maserati is a pretty cool car. It’s highly technical, nicely put together- it’s fantastic. And I can see just in the short time I’ve worked with it the potential that it has. It’s a little more difficult to work on than say a prototype, just because of all the extra body panels and such to work around. But in the end it’s still just a race car.”

They felt the car would be within about two seconds of the Corvettes based on their testing last month and are pretty pleased to get within one second during qualifying. The GT40 project is coming along nicely and will compete in the GT2 class. Doran is very proud of this project and says the car will compare in magnitude to the Ferrari 430. There is a possibility the car will be ready for display at Petit Le Mans and race at Laguna but Doran says it will definitely be at Sebring for the winter test week. He thinks the car will not need extensive testing and expects it to be fast right out of the box. It will be powered by a normally aspirated 5-liter, 4-valve Ford engine tuned by Doran. Doran’s shops have also designed and built all the suspension bits and uprights specifically for the chassis. Doran says he is committed to run the car with his team for at least the first half of the ‘08 season. It will be made available for customers and talks have begun with a few interested parties. A return trip to Le Mans is also the plan for Doran Racing, who last raced there in ‘98 with the 333SP.

Doran also mentioned that his GT40 would come fitted with the ACO mandated air conditioning. The air-con system is something that not everyone is running yet and something that doesn’t seem to get mentioned very often. But it does in fact have quite an effect on the performance of the cars and their drivers. Rick Mayer from Risi took a moment to explain the air-con system that is in place on both the Risi cars. Surprisingly it is very much like the standard system you would find on your street car. The compressor hangs off the front, or back in the case of the 430, of the engine and is belt driven. The condenser sits at the very front of the nose, under the hood, and the evaporator sits at the firewall. There is no fan, at 160+ mph there really is no need for one: just outside air flows through and gets cooled on its way into the cockpit. Mayer estimates the system weighs about 20 kg (about 44 lb.) and costs the engine about 4 hp. To offset the weight and performance drain of running the system the Ferrari is allowed a .4 millimeter larger air restrictor and 25 kg. break in weight. Mayer again estimates the larger restrictor is worth about 7hp. Porsche teams report the temperature inside the car got up 130 degrees F yesterday compared to about 100 degrees for the air-con equipped Ferrari.