ALMS, Lime Rock - Warm-Up
Making The Most Of The Opportunity 

One good thing about the short length of this track is that teams can pack in quite a few laps in the traditional twenty minute race morning warmup session.  With the time lost coming in and out of the pits, plus driver changes, teams are lucky to get in a couple laps per each driver at circuits like Sebring and Miller.  Here though, with the 50 second lap times, teams can at least get each driver a decent amount of laps.  Autocon wins the award for getting the most of the mini-session with a high count of 15 laps completed.

The session started about 30 minutes late, as water left on the track from last night’s downpour delayed the start of the Formula BMW race that preceded it.  The track was still a bit damp in areas even after the open wheeler’s completed their heat.  The grass surrounding the track was still very wet and muddy in areas. 

Andrea Robertson got on the throttle a little too aggressively in her Ford GT-R and spun in a wet spot sending her into the grass.  The GT-R needed a tow out of the mud and suffered some minor damage to the front splitter. David Robertson, “The car is okay, simple fix by replacing the front splitter.  She just got caught in a slippery spot with cold tires and around it went.  This is one tough car though.  Only one time in all our races have we not been able to repair the car right here in our paddock.  This car is durable but heavy, I guess that’s the tradeoff. The Ferrari can out brake us ferociously.  We are better at the longer tracks like Sebring and Road America.  This track really doesn’t suit our car, but I do love racing here.  It’s a lot of fun. I think our car would do great at Le Mans if we ever make it over there.  We are going to do the Asian Le Mans races as that sounds like too much fun to pass up.”

Near the end of the session, with the sun coming out and track drying, the times dropped considerably.  All three Acura prototypes broke the 50 second mark in there last few laps.  Brabham lead the group followed by Fernandez and then Pagenaud.  A few second back was Johnny Mowlem in the hybrid.  The #16 Dyson Mazda was lapping competitively, but the #20 was not.  The #20 car of Franchitti and Leitzinger was slowed with a problem with one of the injectors.  Leitzinger assured us that the crew had it fixed and they would be good to go for the race.

The GT2 was its usual tightly bunched group.  Bergmeister in the #45 lead the class but there was less the 1 second separating the top 5 cars.  2nd quickest was Henzler who was followed by Melo, Auberlen and Milner.  Wolf Henzler, “The car felt really good  in this morning’s practice. We made a mistake for qualifying.  We chose the wrong tires.  We tried something a little different and it didn’t work out.  I wasn’t able to really show what the car was capable of.  But you have to try different things to improve and get faster.”

Vici Racing, per plan, elected to not participate in the warm up.  The Snow Racing Challenge Porsche only got one lap in due to air jack problems.  Intersport Racing didn’t want to take any chances in the wet and with “nothing to learn” put the Lola away after just a few laps.

Russell Wittenberg