Conditions have hardly changed since the first practice session. Rain has fallen even harder in between the first session and this one. Continental Tires Sports Cars Championship had to call off qualifying and only run their afternoon track time as a further practice session.
As the session went green, nearly the whole grid went out on track. Rooster tails in full force with the drivers circulating around the track. The session leader early on was Wolf Henzler in the #17 Falken Tire Porsche with a 2:25.449. Second place overall early in the session a second GLTM runner, the Earl Bamber driven #912 Porsche 911 RSR on a 2:27.168.
The session is changing quickly though and even as fast I wrote this, the track is starting to form a drier line with times beginning to tumble.
Overall fastest time was soon held by fellow Porsche GTLM driver Nick Tandy, navigating his #911 911 RSR around the Road America circuit in a 2:23.218. Interestingly though, the fastest prototype car was still slower than the fastest GTLM car, with Richard Westbrook piloting his #90 VisitFlorida Chevrolet Corvette DP to a 2:24.480, nearly 1.3 seconds slower than the 911 RSR of Tandy.
LMPC’s fastest runner was Renger Van Der Zande in the #8 Starworts Oreca-FLM09 on a 2:26.556. GTD’s quickest runner in the first quarter of an hour in session 2 was fan favorite Spencer Pumpelly in his #73 Park Place Porsche GT America with a time posted of 2:38.194.
With only 40 minutes remaining in the session, the rain still continued to fall, however cars and drivers seemed to be running race setup programs with multiple laps in a row being completed, allowing for a drying line around the track. The Ferrari’s in GTLM and GTD also now made their first appearances on track of the weekend with a pair of F458 Italia’s making laps.
But with 36 minutes remaining in the session, the red flag was shown for the Matt McMurray driven #16 BAR1 Motorsports car, stalled at the apex of Turn 5 right after the Hurry Down’s section of the track. The driver on the radio saying, “The engine is making a lot of noise, but doesn’t sound right.” Not good news at all for McMurray’s hopes of continuing on in this session.
With 30 minutes remaining in the session, all of the cars were tucked neatly back into the pit lane, with the Red flag still ruling the roost. The IMSA and Road America track marshals on track sweeping away fluid added from somewhere other than the rivers that have been flowing all weekend.
As the track marshals continued to work on returning the racing surface to green, it was revealed that the #16 car of Matt McMurray has dropped a 2ft wide line of oil from Turn 2 onwards all the way down to Turn 5, and with rain getting harder it was a miserable task for the track workers to undertake.
The session went back to green again with just 9 minutes remaining. Michael Valiante setting a faster time for the #90 VisitFlorida.com Racing Corvette DP, posting a very quick 2:24.480, but still over 1 second arrears of the fastest time of the session, still held by the #911 Porsche 911 RSR of Tandy on 2:23.218.
As the checkered flag flew over the second Practice Session, Nick Tandy stayed on top of the time sheets for both fastest time overall and fastest time in GTLM. For Prototype, Michael Valiante’s 2:24.480 was the fastest Prototype time posted. LMPC saw Mirco Schultis in the #8 Starworks Motorsports car, painted in gorgeous Martini colors, go fastest this afternoon with a session best time of 2:26.556. Spencer Pumpelly continued his quick rain pace by posting the fastest GTD time on a 2:38.194.
That wraps up all the action from the Tudor United Sports Car Championship for this Friday. Luckily tomorrow’s weather forecast is for dry conditions!
Paul Marquardt
