The Tudor United Sportscar Championship will make its next stop in the north-east corner of Connecticut at Lime Rock Park, marking a return to the calendar after an absence in 2014 (here’s the Grand-Am field from 2013 – below). The race will be a 2 hour and 40 minute affair with the novelty of a Friday-Saturday schedule.
Sundays are silent at Lime Rock due to a court injunction issued in 1959 after local residents complained about the track that had recently opened on the location of an old gravel pit. The off-day is reserved for more sedate activity such as car shows and pedal powered gatherings.
Like the most recent rounds at Mosport and Watkins Glen, Lime Rock is a natural terrain road course situated in a rural area. Unlike those two, however, Lime Rock is a much shorter and tighter circuit covering only 1.5 miles. With a good run through the last downhill corner, the last of the late brakers can pass at the end of the front straight, but it is difficult to pass on the twisty and narrow track otherwise.
Only the prototype challenge and GTD classes will be in action due to IMSA’s shuffling of the class composition throughout the 2015 season. The PC cars ran at Mosport two weeks ago while the GTD cars last ran at Watkins Glen a month ago. All four classes will be back in action together at the next round at Road America in Wisconsin.
Quality is always better than quantity, but more quantity would have been welcome on the entry list too. The 18 cars on the preliminary entry list are split between 7 prototype challenge cars and 11 GTD cars. For perspective, both the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Series ran separately at Lime Rock in 2013 before the merger, each with fields of 33 cars.
Lime Rock will see a familiar prototype challenge field, with some possible changes to driver line-ups at particular teams. Sean Rayhall stays in the #16 BAR1 Motorsports entry, but John Felb will give way to Todd Slusher. Rayhall serves as co-driver and driving coach for both Felb and Slusher. Slusher made his TUSCC debut at Laguna Seca earlier in the year alongside Felb and left with a fifth place finish in class. He is a gentleman driver, but has prior experience in lites and at events like the Thunderhill 25 Hours.
The BAR1 team scored a second place at Mosport behind Colin Braun and Jon Bennett in the #54 CORE autosport who won in dominant fashion and will be looking to repeat at Lime Rock. CORE autosport has built a healthy points lead ahead of the PR1 Mathiasan Motorsports car which will be piloted by regulars Mike Guash and Tom Kimber-Smith. PR1 did not have a good finish at Mosport, struggling with a power steering leak.
Starworks regulars Mirco Shultis and Renger van der Zande will be looking for a better outing at Lime Rock as well. Mirco was ill enough for Starworks to look for a substitute in the morning, but he started the car and took it through a strong first stint. The car showed good pace before retiring with a rear bearing failure which caused a chain of damage that wreaked havoc on the brakes and engine.
GTD sees a line-up of the usual suspects with some modest changes. Kuno Wittmer has joined the TRG Aston Martin for the remainder of the season. Wittmer had an eventful outing at Watkins Glen with brilliance in the wet, but ending against the barriers on the front straight. The team was pleased and a switch was made for Wittmer to join Christina Nielsen. The TRG team is fourth in points in GTD going to Lime Rock with a chance to make ground given the slim margins ahead of them. They spent the day on Tuesday testing at Virginia International Raceway in preparation for Lime Rock.
Dane Cameron also will take advantage of the off-weekend for the prototypes to re-join his prior Turner Motorsports team for a one-off ride in their BMW Z4. Cameron won the 2014 GTD championship with Turner and will be sitting in for series regular Markus Palttala. Palttala will be busy navigating the perils of the Ardennes at the Spa 24 hour race.
A new entrant on the GTD scene will be the Canadian based Compass360 Racing team who will make their Tudor series debut with their Audi R8 LMS. Their car was on display in the support paddock at Mosport before a successful day of testing on Wednesday to acclimate the drivers. Pierre Kleinubing and Ray Mason will co-pilot the Audi which is also entered at Road America, Virginia and Circuit of the Americas. Compass360 runs a pair of Audi S3 entries in the Continental Tire Challenge series that supports the Tudor schedule.
The Compass360 Audi will join Audi regular Paul Miller Racing to represent the four ring marque. Co-pilots Christopher Haase and Dion von Moltke have converted consistent finishes to the points lead coming into Lime Rock. The team has finished second or third in each of its last three events.
Leh Keen and Cooper MacNeil in the Alex Job Porsche are second in points with the Ferrari of Bill Sweedler and Townsend Bell just behind. Keen and MacNeil won together in 2012 when the pair last ran at Lime Rock.
Lime Rock is quick and short, with lap times well below a minute. The lighter field may mean that traffic is less of an issue, but it is always an issue to some degree. At last check, the weather shouldn’t be a factor, but it could be a warm day and perfect for a picnic on the hillsides around the track.
Practice and qualifying will run on Friday with the main event on Saturday afternoon. Stay tuned to DSC for summaries of both with live coverage of all sessions on IMSA Radio via www.radiolemans.com.
Kevin Ehrlich
