ALMS Mid-ohio – Acura Sportscar Challenge – Thursday Test Report
Green Initially
© Gary Horrocks

Under unsettled skies, the Thursday afternoon test session kicked off activities for the American Le Mans Series race at Mid-Ohio, formally known as the Acura Sports Car Challenge.

Thankfully the heavy rains that had been hitting the area dried up before the session began. Roughly an hour before the session began, the rains stopped, allowing the scheduled session to begin on time. All told, 25 of the 27 cars entered for the race turned laps. Those that did not see the track were #21 PTG Panoz and the #54 Team Trans Sport Porsche.

The two hour session began with the GT class cars having the track to themselves for the first 30 minutes, with the next hour for all of the cars, and the final 30 minutes were reserved for the Prototypes only. Thankfully, there were no stoppages and no reported incidents.

Marino Franchitti reports that it was "wet to start the session so we waited until it dried a bit. We did an installation lap on wets then straight to slicks while it was a wee bit damp still. Very close at the top and we're pretty happy that we can challenge for the pole tomorrow. It's going to be tight!"

As has been occurring lately, it was P2 class cars to the front. In fact when the session ended, the six fastest cars were of the so-called junior class, led by David Brabham, in the Highcroft Acura, who turned a 1:11.298 on the 33rd lap for the car and last of the session. Considering the conditions, this compares favorably with the reports of times in the 1:10 range (not attributed to anyone in particular) in testing here earlier this year. Make no mistake about it – the times are going to be staggering as the weather improves. Brabs and his team owner looked less happy earlier on.

David Brabham: “The balance changed over the course of the run and the car just kept getting better and better. The changes we made during the session enabled us to get in a flyer which gave us the quickest time of the day." Co-driver Stefan Johansson was in the car early and initially found the conditions to be greasy, but changing as more cars ran on the track.

Earlier in the session, Allan McNish had been fastest in the #1 Audi, but his time did not hold up. Dindo Capello ultimately was able to get down to a 1:12.300, slightly more than 0.3 seconds slower than the team #2 Audi. All said, the top seven cars turned laps all within a second of each other, with the McNish/Capello R10 only .003 seconds back. It wasn’t for the lack of trying by the Audi teams – the two diesels turned the most laps in the session - 55 for car #1 and 46 for car #2.

The #20 Dyson Racing Porsche was limited to only 15 laps in the session. Shifting issues held the car back and also prevented Guy Smith from getting into the car in this session. Smith: “Even with the problems today, I think we’re better off, reliability wise than we were last season. We’ve finally got the testing in to be able to improve the car and it’s going much better now. Realistically, I can’t see us being able to catch the Penske cars in the points, but we can aim for third.”

Jon Field was the fastest driver in the Intersport Creation, but he was also the only driver in it for this session. Something about relearning the track, according to Clint. The team is looking forward to getting to some of the higher speed tracks which will better suit the Creation chassis.

Bryan Willman was in the Autocon Creation. Nobody was sure if he was scheduled to be here from the beginning, but whatever, he was here. “We draw up plans at the beginning of the season, but somehow, those go by the wayside. Someone told me I was supposed to be here, so here I am. The time may not look all that great, but it’s the fastest I’ve ever been around here.”

Greg Pickett was quite frustrated from the session. Various problems limited the Team Cytosport Lola to only six laps in the session.

In GT1 (or the Corvette class – at least for now?) it was the #3 bettering the #4, with both cars turning an identical 24 laps in the session.

Wolf Henzler drove his Tafel Racing Porsche to the fastest GT2 time of the session – a 1:22.857. “The car felt quite good. In the time since the last race at Lime Rock, Tony (Dowe) has really concentrated expressly on the ALMS program and we are seeing the result of that now.”

Second and third were the always together Risi and Petersen White Lightning Ferraris. These teams are quite closely matched, but Tomas Enge expects to see more out of the Italian cars. “We’re not perfect yet… The arm is still pretty sore, but there is not much that I can do about it at this point. It looks like it will be a winter project now.”

The Rahal Letterman Porsche 997 finished the session fourth quickest in class. Ralf Kelleners found the track “OK, considering the amount of rain we’ve seen. The car is behaving about the same as it did in some earlier testing we did about a month ago – it’s understeering still. Home track? For the team yes. But not with this car. We’re still learning it. We’ve been doing OK, but we just need some breaks to go our way.”

It wasn’t a good session for the points leaders in GT2, as the Lizards #45 Porsche struggled in the session, only turning 15 total laps. Johannes van Overbeek said that “the car is turning OK one direction, but not well the other. We’ll have to be working on it. As far as getting the points lead now, well, to be honest, I didn’t think it was possible, at least the way things were going so far. But it just shows that you should never give up, and we don’t intend to.” When asked about the special Le Mans livery, Johannes did state that he thought it was likely that the livery could be seen in an ALMS race before the end of the season.

In the #61 Risi Ferrari, Italian Gianmaria Bruni is replacing Nic Jonsson, who is at Barber Motorsports Park for the Grand-Am Race.

Of the cars that ran, as expected the slowest was the Woodhouse Viper. That is not a put down. Cindi Lux, expected the car to be about 5 seconds a lap slow, so maybe being around 4.5 seconds back is a moral victory. While the car was in tech, there were a few items that the team will need to address; nothing major, but just some issues that need to be taken care of before the car takes to the track again. It must be remembered that this is just a trial; an attempt to see how things might work out for the future. Immediate results are not expected. One problem that has not been addressed is that this is not truly an endurance spec car. It is a sprint car that has been adapted to run an endurance race. Cindi: “Our driver change might not be real good. The roll cage is not set up for rapid driver changes and while getting in or out, it’s a pretty tight fit for my helmet.”

The latest weather forecast is for much better conditions on Friday and Saturday. There will be two separate practice sessions on Friday, to be followed by the usual 20 minute qualifying session for each of the two categories (Prototype and GT). Also later in the day, Scott Atherton will address the media concerning the recent announcement that the series will be returning to Long Beach again.

File under lost in the shuffle – the Detroit race length has been changed from 4 hours to the more usual 2 hours, 45 minute format.

Graffiti of the Day – found in a stall in the men’s rest room – “I can smell Michigan in here.”