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Lime Rock Park

Dodge Dealers

28/05/2001

Look Back

To Last Weekend

Janos Wimpffen looks back to Watkins Glen and the 6 Hours.

The Long and Short of It

This is a busy set of weeks for the Grand-Am circus. They just completed the second enduro of the season and now move on to the shortest event on the calendar, Lime Rock, and then to the medium-length Mid-Ohio event.

The 6 Hours of Watkins Glen featured some fine dicing for the first half and then much coughing and wheezing later on. The series’ reputation as being host mostly to older iron was reinforced by the win of the Ferrari-Judd. The quickest of the newer set, the Field / Gavin Lola, gave it a fine run until it was bumped off by an AGT Corvette. The promise of new blood from Robinson was thwarted when the Mk III-C went into the barriers. By the way, that is chassis 001 of the breed, the Dyson ALMS version being 002. I had thought 001 was the crash test dummy — maybe it is!

Further down the SR order, the Norma eventually went out with a broken suspension after having had almost no pre-event track time due to gearbox woes. The team is still waiting for a new chassis from France which will house a V-8 Ford. The high torque-low weight combination should work better than their dated and troublesome BMW.

Dennis Spencer’s SRII class winning Kudzu-Mazda bears very little resemblance to its earlier incarnation as a WSC car, but it is also among the elderly—so much so that Grand-Am has done their best to keep it from competing. Their concern is that it is showing up the Lola that it so effectively does at the longer events. Spencer’s group honed their stops and driver changes to perfection. The experience of Grupp and Waddell combined with the youthful exuberance, but willingness to learn, of Hampton, made for an excellent combination. The team quickly found their rhythm in the early going and worked to the front.

By contrast, the two by two car Lola-Nissan teams were struggling. Paul Macey had an unusually slow run in the no. 21 Archangel car and Larry Connor sloppily crashed no. 22. The no. 89 of Andre Gaudet’s Porsche Haus Racing actually went quite well, especially during Bruno St. Jacques’ stints. The master brake cylinder failed to release on the no. 88 car, shortening its appearance.

GTS was another non-event. The Fordahl Saleen went well while the Schumacher GT1 needed a mid-race transmission rebuild. Porsche expert Kevin Jeannette lent a hand and in response Larry Schumacher offered the junior Jeannette, Gunnar, a seat in the car for the Lime Rock race. Jeannette is also in conversation with Walter Gerber about taking Bob Wollek’s slot at the White Lightning team. I’m sure it’s not the way the “kid” wants to move up, but life for the rest of us moves on.

Gunnar gave the G & W Porsches a run in the GT race, although the experienced Darren Law led car took class honors. The no. 75 Policastro / Jeannette car had consistent axle / c.v. problems on one corner. Their other entry, the older no. 97 RSR, fared better, acting as a training exercise for newcomers Stephen Bartkiw and Mark Minkin. Also in GT, Spencer Pumpelly’s car lost a half-hour with a driveline failure. Continuing with the older car theme, there was a tube framed Porsche running test laps for owner Jacques Guenette, under management by Jacques Rivard. This car is based on an old 930 and was run for Angelo Cilli by Alex Job back in the early 1990s. This past weekend it saw double duty in the Historics Sports Racing support event where it wore the clothes of a 935—only in Grand-Am. The Aquilante Corvette also attempted to do double duty, but the engine didn’t survive the accompanying Speedvision GT race.

AGT was the usual struggle of the wounded with the winning Conway / Goad car doing a good job of a quick gearbox change. The Bupp / Leavy Camaro went through a few too many brake pads. On the last stint Leavy elected to save time by not changing pads and simply drove without touching the middle pedal. Co-driver Doug Mills was taken ill and only managed a few laps in mid-race.