Race Day ALMS Warm Up
The session started off with a bit of a mess. Ricardo Gonzalez was slow on track in the 552 Level 5 HPD, which caused the Dyson to have to check up. This caught out the Risi Ferrari. Both the Risi and Dyson entries had minor damage, while the Level 5 car had significant more damage.
The session was red flagged early with the AJR Ferrari in the gravel.
The morning weather started as cloudy, much cloudier than the past days have been. There is a 40% chance of thunder showers in the region for later this afternoon – which likely fits right into the race window.
TV Coverage Announcement
One announcement was made over the weekend that is significant – the USCR series will be broadcast on Fox Sports, the network which will soon be taking over what has been SPEED.
The 5-year, multi-media deal covers all USCR and all Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge races, and ensures that all of the events will be made available on either the Fox Sports or the soon to be announced Fox Sports 2 networks.
This is a bit of a help to the teams which are still trying to sort plans for the 2014 season, but consensus is that much more is needed in order to really figure out how they want to compete in the new series.
GA Points
A DNF for the championship leading Starworks entry figured to knock them out of the top spot in the chase, but poor finishes by the other leading contenders allowed the Starworks pair of Dalziel/Popow to stay in the lead.
The Gainsco Corvette spun out of a good result late in the race, while the WTR Corvette faded after leading.
1 Alex Popow/Ryan Dalziel 246 points
2 Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty 242
3 Christian Fittipaldi 239
4 Joao Barbosa 237
5 Jordan Taylor/Max Angelelli 234
6 Memo Rojas/Scott Pruett 232
In GT, the Magnus Porsche team extended their points lead over Stevenson, due to a late mechanical breakage in the rear of the Camaro late in the race.
BMW Upgrade?
Apparently the BMW Z4s are running a new double wish bone front suspension, possibly for the first time here at Road America. This was discussed way back at Sebring, but it appears as if the actual execution of making the change was delayed till much later in the season than originally anticipated.
Doug Fehan on GT Balance and Le Mans
When the GT class in the ALMS is discussed, inevitably, in some way, the discussion will include the balance of the cars. On Friday, Doug Fehan of Corvette Racing gave us his opinion on the class balance.
“I’m pretty much OK with where it (the class balance) currently is. I could make some suggestions here or there, but as of now, I think it’s pretty good. I am a bit concerned about the Vipers though. They been given so many waivers – I think it may be time for the series to rein them in soon.” Those words were rather prophetic, given the results from the Saturday qualifying session, which saw Jonathan Bomarito break the track record and pretty much obliterate the concept of class balance.
As far as Le Mans, the team knew that Michelin was going to supply new tires for the race and it wasn’t really anything he was concerned about. After all, they had the test to acclimate the cars to the tires. Unfortunately for them, the weather gods did not cooperate at all. “We had anticipated using the test to sort the cars to the tires, but the rain pretty much stopped us from doing so. That’s no excuse though. Where we fell short was in the FIA/ACO balance of the class. As it was set, we didn’t have a shot. None at all. To be honest, the only cars with a shot at winning were the Porsches and the Aston Martins. The rest of us were fighting for crumbs. For us, we did all we could – we ran a pretty much faultless race, but still couldn’t compete. I’m pretty sure that won’t be happening again, as some changes have been made at the FIA level.”
As far as the rest of the season and beyond, he expects to see a tight battle for the class title to continue to the end of the season, as is very relieved to see the GT class emerge unscathed in the 2014 regulations, including sticking with the tire regulations as they currently are.
Tires, 2014 style
So, the recent announcement indicated that all but the GT class would be competing on spec Continental tires, but earlier it had been announced that the Delta Wing was to be part of the Prototype class moving forward. That’s all fine, but what does that mean tire-wise for the Delta Wing, come 2014, if it continues to compete? Currently, they are on Bridgestone tires, but whoever they work with, which now will apparently be Continental, will be forced to make a proper sized tire for the unique car. But doesn’t that mean that the tires will no longer be spec?
Hmmm…
A McMurry Family Affair
As previously mentioned, Chris McMurry is doing double duty this weekend. Besides his duties driving the Dyson Lola Mazda, he is also being a proud papa, watching his son Matt compete for the first time in IMSA Lites.
One of the intriguing aspects of Matt’s appearance in this series is his age – he is only 15. Thus far, he is well on his way his immediate goal, which is to become the youngest driver to race at Le Mans.
Current regulations state that a driver must be at least 16 the year before being eligible to compete at Le Mans. Matt makes that cut, but just barely. He turns 16 in November.
In order to achieve his goal of competing at Le Mans in 2014, he expects to be driving at both Daytona and Sebring, as well as testing in various in various levels of cars in the off season.
It is evident that he has some talent – in his first race in IMSA Lites, he finished a strong sixth in the first race here on Saturday, after setting the fourth fastest lap time in that race. In the Sunday morning race, Matt finished a very competitive fifth and impressively broke the 2:06 lap time barrier during the race.
Gary Horrocks
