Under brilliant blue skies, the TUDOR series performed their annual street sweeping duties here at Long Beach. The 2 hour session kicked off at 7:45am in typical Long Beach fashion.
The session was filled with minor spins scattered throughout the session, the most significant being one involving Tom Long in the 07 Mazda. He found the wall around the fountain, causing some bodywork damage. This delayed their efforts but they were able to return to the track later in the session. Unfortunately the Mazda entries ended the session the slowest of the entries.
In the last 30 minutes of the session, the Shank Ligier spent some time off the racing surface, the result of a coming together with the Falken Porsche. The Porsche cut inside of Oz Negri and when Negri took his line, it was already filled. The Ligier spent some time off the track getting refired. The Shank P2 entry finished the session 6th fastest.
At the checkered flag, it was Dane Cameron coming through for the fastest time in the session in the #31 Action Express/Whelen Corvette.
The GTLM times were as might be expected, considering the latest round of performance adjustments. These adjustments gave some help to the Ferrari and BMWs and not unexpected it was those cars that topped the times in the morning session.
Best was the single Ferrari entered, the Risi car with Kaffer/Fisichella driving. The car was competitive all session long and near the end it was Fisichella coming up on top by .4 seconds over hometown boy Bill Auberlen and his BMW.
The .4 second gap up front aside, the class again shows the typical tremendous balance, with 3-5 places separated by less than .03 seconds. Those three consisted of BMW/Corvette/Porsche.
In the prototype ranks, the new to Long Beach DeltaWing didn’t light the timing charts on fire, but they didn’t embarrass either. Katherine Legge was credited with the car’s fastest lap, 2 seconds off the pace of Cameron and .75 seconds off the pace of the fastest P2 spec car, that is the Shank Ligier.
Later today will see qualifying. This time the session will include a 35 minute qualifying warm up before the typical separate sessions.
Gary Horrocks
