Porsche
Clash at the Glen
PCA
Club Race at Watkins Glen, June 4-5, 2005
The Watkins Glen PCA Club race is one of
the larger races on the east coast. This race is also scheduled
the weekend prior to the grand am 6-hour race, so many drivers come to
this race as a warm-up. In preparation for the IRL race later this
season, Watkins Glen received some "upgrades." Most
notably was on the outside of turn one where the gravel was replaced
with asphalt, and the guardrails were moved further from the track in
some places. Still, blue Armco lines the track and most 'offs'
resulted in a black flag-all. Nearly all practices and some races
were shortened due to these black flags.
In group 2, Bill Martin qualified 2nd in
D class and Patrick Small started 5th in E. The race was scheduled
for 14 laps, but a black flag after only 9 cut the race short.
Bill was running 2nd in D, and in the laps before the black came out, he
was catching the class leader. Had the race gone the distance,
things could have gotten very interesting. Patrick had a strong
race and also crossed the checkers in 2nd.
Group 4 held the GTC3 class, which
continues growing very rapidly. Out of 40 cars in this run gorup,
28 were in the GTC3 class. This was Mac's first race at Watkins
Glen, and the constant blacks made it difficult to get up to
speed. Cory brought out our 2000 car, changed back to GTC3 spec,
and Farnbacher Loles invited Leh to drive one of their cars to get
familiar with the track prior to the Grand Am race. Leh learned
the track very quickly and was at the top of the class all
weekend. Older GT3 Cup cars are always going to be a little
off-pace to the newer cars, but Cory's car was a bit off due to the
stock exhaust that was installed and likely was not flowing as it
should. Still, Cory drove well enough to start 7th in class.
Leh won GTC3, spending the entire race challenging the top GTA
car. Cory ran as high as 5th, but didn't have the car to hold the
position. He finished where he started in 7th. Mac continued
to pick up speed throughout the race and ended up 3 positions better
than he started.
Qualifying for Sunday's enduro was set by
fastest laps form the sprint race. Cory joined Bill and started
the race 3rd in D. Patrick would also start the race 3rd in
E. Cory had a great run in the 964 Cup, quickly moving up to 2nd
and slowly chasing down and passing the leader. He pulled a few
second lead and then came in to turn the car over to Bill with about 40
minutes to go in the 90 minute race. Shortly after Bill got in the
car, Patrick was pushed off course by lap traffic up the esses, the
fasted section of the course. His car impacted the guardrail
causing considerable damage. This caused a long yellow that
eventually ended the race. Enduro rules do not allow making the
mandatory pit stop under yellow, so any car that did not stop in the
first 50 minutes or so of the race was not able to stop and was
consequently disqualified. Still, that did not affect Cory and
Bill, who won D class and took 3rd overall.
In
the GTC3 enduro, Cory started the race in Mac's new '05 car, and Leh
shared driving duties with Wolf Henzler, our co-driver for the 6-hour
race. Leh and Wolf took the overall as expected. Cory made a
hard charge up through the field running as high as 3rd in class when he
turned it back over to Mac. The only drivers faster than Cory in
the enduro were Leh and Wolf. Mac continued improving and was
turning very respectable laps by the end of the race. He took the
checkers 7th out of 24 cars in GTC3. Gary Pennington also ran a
strong race, finishing up in 8th.
This was a fun weekend for all of our
drivers. We regret that incidents put a few out, but we are happy
about everyone's performance. We are also pleased to have the top
3 drivers in the enduro making up our driver line-up for the Grand Am
race the following weekend. |
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