Ten ALMS cars took advantage of near perfect weather conditions on Sunday at Road Atlanta to begin preparations for next Saturday’s 16th Annual Petit Le Mans in a pair of test sessions.
P1 champions Muscle Milk Pickett Racing led the way in both of the day’s sessions, posting a best lap of 1:10.510 (129.684 mph) in the morning session for the fastest time of the day. The #6 Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03c will be shared this week by Romain Dumas, Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf. Dumas posted the quickest time today.
Leading the way in the P2 class and turning the second-quickest time overall was the #551 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b at 1:13.689 (124.089 mph). Team owner/driver Scott Tucker and Ryan Briscoe are the entered drivers for the #551 machine. Third quickest on the day was Level 5’s #552 entry for Tucker, Marini Franchitti and Guy Cosmo at 1:14.489 (122.756 mph).
The lone Prototype Challenge presented by Continental Tire machine to turn laps on Sunday was the #25 8Star Motorsports ORECA FLM09. The car, to be co-driven by Sean Rayhall and Ozz Negri, turned a best lap of 1:16.072 (120.202 mph).
SRT Motorsports’ pair of SRT Viper GTS-Rs was the quickest of four GT machines to participate in Sunday’s test sessions. Topping the chart was the #93 car at 1:19.394 (115.172 mph) to be shared by Jonathan Bomarito, Kuno Wittmer and Tommy Kendall.
“I’m really pleased with how well the cars rolled out of the trailer which we kind of expected, to be honest,” Bomarito said. “The last few races, the cars have rolled out of the truck with a really good baseline setup, decent balance. We had some system checks in that first session today. We have a long week so we have to pace ourselves.”
The lone GT Challenge entry to test on Sunday was the #66 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup at 1:25.283 (107.219 mph). The car will be co-driven by Craig Stanton, Ben Keating and Damien Faulkner. Keating and Faulkner come into Petit Le Mans riding a two-race winning streak after taking the inaugural ALMS round at Circuit of The Americas last month and at Virginia International Raceway last Saturday.
The ALMS machines return to the 2.54-mile Road Atlanta circuit for another pair of sessions on Monday. The first runs from 8 a.m. to 12 Noon ET with the second from 1 to 5 p.m. ET. Live timing and scoring data from all on-track sessions is available on ALMS.com.
Photography by Martin Spetz
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