US
Sportcar Invitational at Laguna Seca
Grand
Am Cup Round 3
May
5-7, 2006
Autometrics Motorsports again teamed up
with the Marcus Motorsports Grand Am Cup effort for the 3rd Round of the
2006 Season at Laguna Seca. We provided management and engineering
support at VIR and took 3rd place honors in a wet and yellow-plagued
race. For this event we brought some of our technicians along as
well. These new 997s are quickly becoming contenders as we become
more familiar with them, so we had high hopes going into this race.
Both the 49 car of Andy Lally and Spencer
Pumpelly and the 50 car driven by Brian Cunningham and Darren Law were
comfortably in the top 10 in practice, and typically in the top 5.
With the exception of ongoing ABS/PASM issues, both cars were working
pretty well by qualifying, and Brian put down a lap good enough for 5th
position despite having the crank pulley come loose on his flyer.
Andy qualified the 49 car and did a great job, taking the overall pole
position.
Conditions were excellent
when the green flag dropped, but that unfortunately did not provide much
more green-flag racing than we had in Virginia. The first caution
came on lap 2, so Cunningham was only able to overtake 1 car before the
pace car came out. About 20 minutes into the 2:30 race and a few
more green laps gave Brian the opportunity to move back into 4th after
being pushed off on the first restart. Andy maintained the lead
for over 50 minutes when the 4th caution moved us into our pit window
for fuel, driver and tire change. Spencer rejoined the field in
28th position overall, and Brian had moved into 2nd place.
Just
past an hour into the race, 50 was hit pretty hard by a Mustang that
left the right front tire flat and a damaged car in the entrance to pit
lane. This forced the officials to close the pits under caution,
and Cunningham drove a few laps with a flat tire before he was able to
make his stop for tires, fuel and driver change. A quick
inspection did not show any damage significant enough to warrant repair,
but the evaluation took enough time to drop them to 47th position
overall. Most teams used this caution to make their final fuel
stops, including the 49 car, who was in 28th at the next restart.
This was slightly risky, as a long stretch of green could have caused
many teams to run out of fuel. All of the top cars had this same
strategy, so we were confident going into the last half of the race.
Darren
and Spencer fought their way through traffic, and many cars still had to
make final fuel stops during the next-to-last yellow with one hour to
go. Green track again with about 45 minute remaining and 50 sat in
27th with 49 just inside the top 10. We had the longest run of
green flag so far this season, and this let our drivers continue to move
up the charts. Less than 15 minutes were left on the clock when
the green flag came out of the final time, and Pumpelly held on to 3rd
place while Law sat in 12th.
Spencer
made a move on Pat Long to move into 2nd position, but the ABS issue
gave the Porsche factory driver the opportunity to take his position
back. Onto the last lap of the race, and Darren continued to make
up ground, taking the checker in 8th position, the best for that car so
far. Pumpelly held a comfortable lead over 4th place, so it looked
like he would take his second consecutive podium finish easily.
Unfortunately, the brakes gave out yet again going into Laguna's famous
corkscrew, leaving 49 stuck in a gravel trap and in 25th position in
class. A very disappointing end to a very strong effort.
The
good news is that the current championship contenders went out very
early in the race, so both of the Marcus 997s still have a shot at the
title. Round 4 is a GS-only race at Phoenix the very next weekend,
so we expect much more green flag racing. The cars running
competitively that race should represent the teams and drivers that will
be fighting for the championship at the end of the season. |
