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Adelaide

ALMS

31/12/2000

Raceday 2

Familiar Pattern

Track images from the www.americanlemans.com sitelink

Into the second hour, the Audis only seemed to be at risk from contact with the opposition. McNish held onto first place ahead of the more traditionally liveried #78, and the ‘Crocodile Hunters’ couldn’t stay close enough to keep the opposition in their sights. Brabham had kept up a fine pace, but it wasn’t quite Audi pace. Murphy was entertaining to watch, but had a quick spin as he tried in vain to keep up with the R8s.

As #12 dropped away, the rest dropped away further. The Olive Garden Lola eased its way up as two hours approached, settling into fourth (four laps down), ahead of the Katoh / O’Connell Panoz, which then met transmission trouble – and dropped 20 laps down. For the DAMS Cadillacs, it was worse than that. #31 was out with broken steering, #32 with a busted engine.

That left the Konrad Lola to fight it out with the Oreca Vipers at the tail of the top six. Watson was back in the Chamberlain Viper for the third stint.

Muller / Luhr were comfortably ahead of #6 PTG BMW until that stopped, so Barbour ran one two.

Norman Simon had a puncture and lost the front tyre completely on the Olive Garden Lola. Lady Luck not with Rafanelli again? Or just a hiccup? Two and a half hours and 100 laps or so and the Audis were two laps ahead of Murphy. A great event, but not a great race, by any means. Best racing is in GT.Too much kerb bashing though?

Problems for Pirro, who loses the #78 car out on the track, hits the wall and (eventually) loses second place. He’s stranded on the track with suspension damage, the Audi R8 out at nearly three hours.

So at three hours, #77 leads by laps from the #12 Panoz, the #78 Audi is listed in third but going nowhere, so Olive Garden are fourth and will take third. The Oreca Vipers are split by the last runner effectively still in the Prototype race, the Konrad Lola. Eighth is the #5 Barbour Porsche, three laps ahead of Randy Pobst in #30. Tenth was the #70 Skea Porsche, but that goes behind the wall, so #15 Barbour Porsche will take third. Richard Dean is waiting for the starter motor to be changed, this car also suffering gearbox difficulties.

Chamberlain’s Viper will move up too from 12th, the recovering #2 Panoz gets ahead of PTG’s best placed entry (#10). The Maassen / Wollek #51 is in for a long gearbox change.