Lime Rock Park Dodge Dealers 28/05/2001   GT Race Recap Welcome to the GA Rain RA   © Andrew S. Hartwell Ahoy race fans! ‘Twas a nor’Easter of sorts that bejeebered the fleet. Men overboard! It did nothing but rain, rain, rain today at Lime Rock Park and that means some people were soaked, some soared, some slid and some stayed the course. For sure the cars looked like speedboats on a shallow lake as the water was forming trout-free streams and lakes at points all around the circuit. The customary command, “Gentleman, start your engines”, was replaced by the more appropriate (for the conditions) “Bait your hooks boys and let’s see what bites!” But some of the captains, mates and fisherman were able to call it a good day. Toney Jennings and Terry Borcheller decided today was a good day to finish first so, they did. And Larry Schumacher and his young partner, Gunnar Jeanette decided to tag along and take second. And since there is one other podium spot to go fishing for, Bill Auberlen and Rick Fairbanks figured, what the heck, and they landed it. This made the finishing order #54 GT, #99 GTS and #10 GT. Ahh, but the starting order. Now that was different. At the green flag, the #99 Porsche GT1 – a classic racecar – went toe-in to toe-in with the #5 Saleen S7R – a car destined to be a classic – into Big Bend (turn 1). Together they were spraying enough water behind them to wet down a golf course. They came out of the corner neck and neck with the Saleen slipping ahead a bit. But it would be a short lived gain as Chris Bingham quickly learned what veteran Lime Rock competitors already knew; this is one slippery racetrack in the rain. Bingham spun the car and found himself falling all the way back to 26th place by the time he de-swamped and got back on the track. With all this wild action and the avoidance stance taken by the Porsche GT1, one pole sitting Porsche GT3R, piloted by a certain First Mate named Spencer Pumpelly, zoomed into the lead. He came around ahead of everyone to take the first lap and soon, he was pulling away from the rest of the pack. Seems a green and white Porsche GT car, captained by a certain Randy Pobst, cared not for the sailing Pumpelly’s rapid separation from the rest of the fleet. Pobst discovered that he too could find ways to go around rather than through the worst water areas. At the end of the straight, for example, Pobst was taking a noticeably inside approach to Big Bend, a tack not taken by others, unless they were coming into the corner alongside another car. The charted course seemed to be effective, as Pobst was the only one keeping up with the Pumpelly watercraft. Ahh, but ‘tis slippery at the rock I told ya. Even the man who has spent half of all of his professional racing laps on the 1.53 Lime Rock circuit could not escape the demons of the sea. Pumpelly and the Jet Motorsports BMW “kind of” slid into each other a bit and the Porsche received a flat tire in the transaction. This put him into the pits for a replacement and found him with his anchor down long enough to let Captain Pobst assume command. The water torture began at 3:15 PM with the assortment of U-boats and sailing ships heading out to sea to battle the elements. Within nine minutes time, we had the #5, #43 and #36 cars spinning ‘round, and the race leader came into the pits. And it only got worse from there. Just four minutes later, Pumpelly took it wide, way wide - through the swamp wide - at Big Bend, trying to catch Captain Pobst. Once he steered past the salamanders and seabirds he brought all four tires back onto the asphalt and took off to continue his pursuit. It was a spirited attempt. Now, just 14 minutes in, the Grand Am Admirals wisely decided to go to a full course yellow. This was almost OK with everybody except that the #5 Saleen and the #65 Camaro felt compelled to moor themselves at the nearest corner. The Saleen eventually limped back to the pits with what Steve Saleen officially described as electrical problems. Not sure what went wrong with the #65 AGT car but they eventually did come back to net a place in the final standings. Yellow, green and gray became the official colors of the race as the rain went from bad to really bad back to pretty bad. In the course of these signal flag color exchanges, several people visited the pit areas. Toney Jennings came in to hand over the boat to Terry Borcheller. This allowed the #18 Comer Racing Corvette to move into 3rd place. At about the same time, the #50 Aasco-Boduck Porsche GT retired with a failure of the lower left control arm. A sarcastic landlubber speculated that they probably hit a dolphin in the esses. The #02 Morrison-Mosler, a truly sleek and fast speedboat of the blacktop sea, had a reported throttle system problem that pushed them back off the waves. They would eventually go on to finish 9th overall and 8th in class. Why 8th? Because all but one of the top 12 overall spots were held by the little Porsche and BMW GT dinghy’s. Seems the big ships in GTS and AGT (with the exception of the Schumacher/Jeanette Porsche GT1) just couldn’t part the waters surface as well as the smaller craft. But the big ships sure could put up a spray! OK, the story of sailors of the Lime Rock Sea continues. Pobst sailed into the pits to hand over the ship’s wheel to his co-captain (no gender referencing demotions in rank will be perpetrated by this writer!) Kim Hiskey. She was itching to get her sea legs back and the reluctant Mr. Pobst accommodate her. But it wasn’t long before Mr. Itchy asked back on board and this time Ms. Hiskey complied, turning the car back over to him, with about 18 minutes left in the regatta. The Captain brought his ship home in 6th overall and 5th in class, right behind Captain Pumpelly. With all the sailors, ships, boats, dinghy’s and other assorted water craft finding their own way to cross the waters, the #10 Bill Auberlen / Rick Fairbanks BMW chugged along like a tug boat on assignment to finish 3rd overall and second in the GT class. The team had to catch a flight so neither harbormaster was able to attend the post-race press conference. (I guess Grand Am will just have to ‘ship’ them the trophy?) If you have come this far on this water tour I salute your stamina and I point out that you have probably realized I can’t find anymore words with a nautical bent to describe the conditions under which this race was run. So the analogy ends here. Turn in your rods and drop anchor and we will get to the post race quotes. Aye aye? Toney Jennings: “The boys stayed up all night and put a new motor in to fix problems we were having. Terry Borcheller: “We were losing water pressure along the same lines of the problems we had at Watkins Glen. We didn’t want to do a rebuild on the road, we figured we had a few weeks with the break to Mid-Ohio, but we didn’t want to chance another DNF.” “We had problems in the warm up this morning because they worked all night. We had loose wires and things like that. Just enough to keep us worried! Jennings: “But the boys (on the crew) weren’t worried. They kept saying over and over we are going to win it.” Borcheller: “This makes it better, because we won overall last year too, in the old Saleen. The one we named “Christine” after the car in the horror movie!” Larry Schumacher: “I started the race and got to ride around for what seemed like an eternity until Gunnar got in at the end and did a dynamite job. The brakes worked for a change, unlike at Watkins Glen where I guess you could say I conducted my own brake tests!” (The team used a few thousand pounds of bondo repairing the bodywork damage done at the Glen.) Gunnar Jeanette: “This is only the third race I have ever done in this series. The car was absolutely perfect in the rain. The guys gave us a car that was very solid to drive. It was very good in the rain. The car just really isn’t suited to this track. It was built to win at Le Mans which is a far cry from the 1.5 mile Lime Rock circuit.” Schumacher: “We were tickled to death when Grand Am allowed this car to compete.” Borcheller: “When I saw the cars at Daytona I was elated. I loved those cars and I hated it when they went away. They give the series more competition. They give the Porsche fans a rivalry between them and the Saleens. Schumacher: “We have only raced this car three times. Hopefully we can go head to head with the Saleen at Mid-Ohio. The car is still brand new to us but I think we have the bugs sorted out.” Schumacher (On the electrical problems experienced by the Saleen): “Maybe we should hope that it rains some more then? We didn’t have a short circuit at all!” Borcheller: “Our team felt bad because we didn’t have the radiator in properly at Watkins Glen. It was one of those things that was overlooked and everybody felt responsible. I felt responsible because I crashed. The crew felt bad..” Jennings: “I didn’t feel responsible!” (Laughter) Borcheller: “Whoever you want to blame, it cost us. We had everything working for us and it cost us the win. Borcheller: “Daytona was a disappointment. When you feel you have a package that can win and you don’t win, the pressure is greater.” Jennings: “I think the fact that we have done so well shows the potential of the platform.” Borcheller: “Toney is the reason we won. Because the other teams that struggled… he just went by them during his stint. He was able to stay ahead of Pobst when everyone else was going a lap down.” Sunday is “no racing day” at Lime Rock. The next installment of this fish story comes on Monday. And the weatherman says bring your slicker ‘cause Mother Nature isn’t finished watering the flowers. I wish I held the patent on the umbrella. Top Finishers: GTS #99, #07, #19, #5 GT #54, #10, #71, #34, #15, #81, #7, #02, #42, #61 AGT #09, #18, #36, #46, #63 Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport