After nearly a month off, it’s time for the TUSCC series to come back into action, of course on the same weekend that the Le Mans test is taking place. This time, the series visits Detroit – actually the Belle Isle circuit – for what has in the past been an interesting race.
Both the Grand Am and the ALMS have visited here in the past and this time the grid pretty much resembles what we’d have seen at a typical Grand Am event, being just (in the main) competitors from the Prototype class and from the GTD class.
We’ve reached the point in the schedule where you really don’t know who is going to be racing where – this coming weekend we have the race here in Detroit, while the next weekend we have the PC competitors joining forces with the IMSA Lites class for two 45-minute races at Kansas Speedway in of all places Kansas City, Kansas. That one ought to be a bit odd.
All the while, we’ll be having competitors jetting back and forth to Le Mans, fulfilling their obligations for the upcoming 24 hour race. This is definitely a tough time that has been brought on by the schedule makers.
Sadly, it is due to the schedules that Corvette Racing will not be able to race in Detroit in front of all of GM. Long ago it was decided that the GTLM class would not compete here, allowing the competitors a chance to get ready for Le Mans. Doug Fehan addressed that at Laguna, simply stating that, “there are limited times for races to be scheduled. In a perfect world, we’d be able to compete at both Detroit and Le Mans, but Le Mans is the big one for us. We have some business we need to take care of in France this year.”
So, exactly what do we have scheduled to compete at Detroit? As of the moment, we have 5 P2 cars scheduled to take on 6 DP cars – pretty much like we’ve seen throughout the course of this season. The opinion of most is that the street-ish circuit at Belle Isle will suit the more powerful DP type cars here, especially the normally aspirated Corvettes, but one must look back at Long Beach to see what the Ganassi team was able to do with the turbo Ford. Where else is better to stage a good old fashioned Ford vs. Chevy battle than in Detroit.
Based upon what we saw at Laguna, ESM seemed to be getting the feeling for their HPD on the Continental Tires. As of right now, that appears to be the key – once the P2 category cars adapt to the Continentals, they should become much more competitive. You almost wonder if once we reach the heat of summer if the DP cars might be at a disadvantage when it comes to tire life and performance.
Of the P2 cars, it is great to see some progress out of the Mazda camp with their Sky-Activ diesel motors. They’re not yet where they want to be, but the recent power upgrade made the cars much closer to the class pace at of all places, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. They’re not there quite yet, as they’re lacking maybe 50 HP yet, but they’re confident enough to be looking at Multimatic/Lola for chassis upgrades.
Entering Detroit, the Action Express pair – Barbosa/Fittipaldi continue to lead, but their lead is only 3 points over Ganassi (Pruett/Rojas) and Wayne Taylor Racing (Taylor/Taylor). A further 14 points back are the Laguna winners, Ed Brown and Johannes van Overbeek for ESM.
For Oak, Gustavo Yaccaman will be paired with Olivier Pla again.
In GTD, the BOP has been juggled again, with most of the emphasis based upon refueling restrictors, where it is almost all change. Meanwhile, the Aston Martins received a +1.0 change on the restrictors, in an effort to make them more competitive with the rest of the field.
The entry indicates that there are to be a total of 21 GTD cars entered, but there were a few tba’s down as drivers as of press time. Notable is that the recently adjusted Aston Martin does not yet have drivers listed for the TRG entry.
The Laguna race was entertaining and very hard fought in the GTD class – expect nothing to change here at Detroit.
As far as the points, up front it is Magnus (Lally and Potter) and AIM (Bell/Sweedler) tied. Townsend Bell will be arriving at Detroit fresh off of a strong run at Indy, where he was battling in the lead group before a 3-wide attempt went all wrong late in the race. Just back in the standings are the Flying Lizards and then AJR. By design, this points chase is very tight and likely will continue to be that way through to the end.
As far as track time, it is better here at Detroit. The race is only 100 minutes, but to prepare the teams have two 90 minute sessions, followed by qualifying on Friday, with the race scheduled to take place midday on Saturday. Not at all bad for a weekend shared with both Indycar and World Challenge.
Gary Horrocks
