ALMS Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Jackets And Lack Of Grip

It’s Friday morning and it’s still a bit on the coolish side here. Jackets, even nearing the noon hour are almost mandatory. Grip, or lack thereof seems to be, like jackets a common theme here at Laguna. The teams are looking for grip on what is a very cool and dusty track.

One team that obviously appeared to have found some was Dyson. About half way through the hour long session, Guy Smith was heading the list and was just over 1.1 seconds clear of the rest of the competitors – and that was with a push that the team was still trying to dial out.

Later into the session, Simon Pagenaud was able to close the gap to just less than half a second in the Highcroft HPD. Keeping it close was the Cytosport Porsche, third overall. These top three could be having quite a good battle come race time.

Intersport is on the upswing, after leading at Long Beach. Jon Field explained that it was a damaged/leaking fuel tank gasket that put them out at the last race. In last nights session, Clint did set the fast time, running on the soft compound Dunlop tires. Unfortunately the tires are good for about 20 laps before they start going off, so the team was working on coming to grips with the medium compound tires. “I hope we can then double stint the medium tires in the race. That would be a good opportunity for us in the race. We also get a new fuel rig, like what Rahal is using. Looks like it will reduce our fueling time from over 40 seconds to about 20.”

An unemployed Paul Drayson was found sitting on the Drayson team stand, trying to keep warm. His response to unemployment was a huge smile and two thumbs up. “I think this can work well for me right now.” As far as the team, they too are very up-beat about the future and are looking forward to what should be a very exciting rest of the year.

Autocon had a gearbox issue in yesterday’s session. It was repaired and the team was ready to go this morning. Bryan Willman was awaiting his time in the car, but did clarify their status concerning Le Mans. “Pretty much what you see here is how we will be at Le Mans. Not using a different car this time. It’s our car, our equipment. We’ll add in a few for help over there, but that’s about it.” He did state that Michael Lewis was joining in as a driver for the race, and that despite his lack of race time lately, he is still the fastest of the drivers on the team.

PC continued to see a strong presence from Johnny Mowlem and the PR1/Mathiasen team, as they toped the times by almost a full second. It was Level 5/Genoa/Level 5/Gunnar/Intersport the rest of the way. For Green Earth Team Gunnar, Gunnar Jeanette was sporting a new ‘tache – which he calls his ‘80’s porn star look. You be the judge…

GT was a Porsche Ferrari BMW Corvette show, but it was not the usually expected Ferrari that was in second. Johannes van Overbeek brought the 01 Extreme Speed Ferrari up to the second best time in the session. “We didn’t do well at all yesterday. Our setup didn’t work, but our team car was better. We took their settings, with a few changes and put them on our car.” Obviously it worked.

BMW had a better session, featuring much stronger this time out, while Risi struggled, being the victim of over engineering. The team went with some stiffer springs, which obviously did not work all that well. Consider it experience as in what not to do later…

Andy Lally brought the TRG Porsche best in the GTC class, just besting the Bryce Miller/Orbit and the GMG efforts. The weather is again playing a key role here at the track.

In yesterdays session, the track temperature dropped over 20 degrees in the 2-hour long session and there is concern about how things are going to be changing over the course of the weekend. Fiona Miller passed on info that nearby Monterey was seeing some fog moving inland and it supposedly headed our way. We’ve all seen odd weather things happen here in our little corner of paradise – could we be having more later on? For some reason, the movie “The Fog” keeps getting replayed in my mind…  

It was good to see Vanessa back at the track this morning, after missing Long Beach.  She is a much needed place of quiet in what can be a very busy and hectic place.

GH