Grand
Am 6 hours at Watkins Glen
The first practice session on Friday morning showed promise for the
weekend. Though only four GT class cars showed up for the 6-hour,
that did not mean the competition was weak. The three other cars
in attendance (Ferrari Washington, Marcus M3 and Rennwerks GT3RS)
currently stand 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the GT standings,
respectively. Cory's fast lap put us at a solid 3rd in
class.
Driving duties were shared by Cory Friedman, Front Porch's Tom Soriano
and Bransen Patch, who drove the RSR at last year's finale. All
turned strong lap times in Friday's practices.
Due to heavy rain on Saturday, the final practice session was truncated
and qualifying was disregarded entirely. Instead, the grid was
determined by Team Owner Points, so we were forced to start at the back
of the field.
The track was damp at the start of the race, but dry tires were
certainly in order. An early yellow brought in a few cars for a
splash-and-go, but we opted to stay out.
When the green flag dropped after a long yellow just prior to the 1-hour
mark, Cory found himself 1st in class and 2nd overall. The GT race
was very competitive with positions changing with pit stops and no car
going more than a few laps down. By the halfway mark in the 6-hour
race, we sat in 3rd place, a few laps ahead of the 4th place BMW and
only 2 laps down from the class leader.
Just shy of 4 hours into the race, Tom Soriano reported a misfire going
into the chicane. By the end of the lap, the engine trouble had propagated
into a huge black cloud from the right bank exhaust. It was clear
that the failure was terminal, and we were forced to retire from our 3rd
place position in class and 6th overall. Our official finishing position
was 15th overall.
Losing the engine was certainly a big disappointment. We are
confident that we could have maintained our position and pulled off a
podium finish.
We would like to thank Tom and Bransen for helping put the event
together.
Given the severity of the failure and the short time in between this incident
our next scheduled Grand-Am race in Daytona; unfortunately, we do not
expect to have the car running in time for the event. |
