TotalMotorSport All the latest Motorsport news, race reports and photographs from around the world. Alms, Touring Cars, Formula One & Le Mans 24 Hours

Sears Point Raceway

X-Factor

22/07/2001

Race Preview

Back Home and Back to Work

© Tom Kjos

The American Le Mans Series returns to North America on July 22 at Sears Point, amongst rolling hills on the southern edge of California's Sonoma Valley-Napa Valley wine country. In the interim, we had a wet Le Mans, and two rounds of the ELMS, one of which can be used for championship points in substitution for another race.

Finally though, for North American sports car racing enthusiasts, we have a race. Televised semi-live nationwide (and at least in parts of Canada), and running live at the newly-upgraded Sears Point, an interesting (some drivers might say "technical") track in some of the nicest (and priciest) geography on the continent.

This was a memorable race last year. Some might have complained about Audi domination, but our race story was entitled "The McNish Invitational", and that was most definitely not meant negatively. In fact, it attempted to describe one of those individual sports performances that one feels privileged to have witnessed. Allan dominated opponents and team-mates alike. How often do we see a completely "hooked-up" performance like that?

The real race was in GT though, where PTG's Hans Stuck and Boris Said were "hooked-up" in a different way--to the bumper of Dirk Müller and Lucas Luhr, front or rear, depending on the lap.

At the end, the BMW M3 crew won on the track and then lost in post-race inspection because of an oversized fuel cell. Tom Milner explained that they tested capacity of the fuel cell in the entirely new E46 M3 at a regular fuel pump--not accurate enough, by his own admission. PTG arrives this year with two new M3 GTRs, designed by BMW Motorsport, but in built in Milner's Virginia shops. I am sure that still burns Mr. Milner, leaving it a fair bet that the details of new-car preparation are even more intensely scrutinized by the boss than normal.

In GTS last season, a single Porsche turbo in the hands of Vic Rice and Zac Brown challenged the all-conquering ORECA Viper team. Not surprisingly, fine drivers or not, it was no challenge at all.
So now we are back. What should we expect? A good crowd, we think. This is the third year at this track, and last year saw a significant increase over year one. Promotion in the Bay Area is solid, with cars and drivers on the Golden Gate Bridge and in Giardelli Square later this week. There was a bit of a back up to get into the main gate on race day last year. Plan on extra time if you are going this year.

Among the prototypes, there is plenty of interest. Panoz goes back to its LMP-1, that of the thundering Ford V8. That will give fans two advantages: aural enjoyment and better on track performance than the thus far failed LMP-07. Cadillac returns. Is this a return from the 2000 season, or still a return from Briggs Cunningham's Le Mans Cadillacs of the 1950s? I prefer to think of it as the latter, if for no other reason than it allows last season to be seen as a less-than-serious re-introduction to the sport. It appears, unfortunately, that this season is a continuation of that. Cadillac plans to run the remainder of the North American schedule, taking an opportunity to work on team management, race management, organizational development, and engine development. An entirely new car is in the wings for 2002; this one isn't really going anywhere.

The Audi contingent includes Audi Sport North America, the Joest-managed winner of this race last year (and likely this year). But it also includes Champion Racing, one of two teams (with Johansson in Europe) running the R8 as a customer. Late last week they upgraded their driving strength with the addition of F1 pilot Johnny Herbert to partner the top-notch Andy Wallace. In so doing, they pose the only real threat to the Audi works team.

The fun story is the appearance of a sometime ALMS and regular Grand Am participant, Jon Field. The Intersport Racing Lola B2K / 10 - Judd V10 becomes the first to benefit from the new ALMS increased restrictor size for privateers running chassis and engine of different manufacture. Field seems to have grown as a driver over the past season and a half, and his team has become progressively more precise in its preparation and race management. I can't think of a better representative to test the rule. There are not many in Grand Am that can seriously run in the professional ALMS field. Field is certainly one of them.

Audis up front then, Champion included. Behind that, my pick is Intersport to run head-up with the two Panoz. Cadillac will have to hope for "breakage."

Just behind these (not amongst them yet) are two LMP675 prototypes. The Roock-prepared KnightHawk Racing still sports Nissan power, though there was talk at Texas of moving to Judd. After a rocky US start, the team put in a much better performance at Jarama, though still ten laps adrift at the finish, to the Barbour Reynard Judd that shares the grid with them here. As long as the Nissan remains the Lola power plant, my pick remains Barbour - with one car after the fire at Le Mans.

What a difference a year makes in GTS. The entry is up 60%. OK, that means from three to five. But those five have speed and pedigree, or both. There is no doubt of the threat that the Saleen S7R poses to Corvette, particularly in a sprint race, and Franz Konrad is a seasoned and capable racer. American Viper Racing returns with its two ex-ORECA Vipers, having run one at Grand Am's Mid Ohio round in June. That was a less-than-hoped-for result, but may have helped the team work out some of chassis and team management problems they encountered at Sebring. Team owner Tom Weickardt told TMS in Florida that he was hoping to improve his driver strength. It isn't clear he has accomplished that. Tom is older than I am, and admits his first real racing experience is not much more than a year behind him. That makes this scribe a BIG fan, but does little to give us confidence in the team's prospects against the likes of Ron Fellows and Andy Pilgrim. Good luck, Tom, strike a blow for those of us now slightly over-the-hill.

In GT the Callaway C-12 is a much-to-be-missed late scratch. That leaves "only" twelve cars, four BMWs and eight Porsches. We were hoping by this time to see four marques, with Corvette in addition to the Callaway having made promising starts to the season. But Trinkler couldn't afford it, and it seems neither could Aspen Knolls. But what would another half dozen Porsches add to this race? Not much beyond sound and fury. There likely still would only be seven cars that can win here--four BMWs and three Porsches. BMW Motorsport demonstrated in Spain that the supposed Achilles heel of the new Bimmer, a propensity to be a gas-guzzler, is now a thing of the past. Porsche in the meantime has been scrambling to find just a little more speed. Where that leaves us is right where we want to be--with real competition. The three Porsches that will contend in this race are the Alex Job Racing pair and the single entry of Peterson Motorsports.

If anyone really believes that GT is little more than a sideshow to the "bigger" classes, they have only to look at the driver strength of these contending four teams and seven cars: Said, Stuck, Auberlen, Jönsson, Pobst, Menzel, Luhr, Maassen, Mowlem, Bernhard, Lehto, Jörge Müller, Ekblom, and Dirk Müller. Is this a thoroughly professional field? In all classes, the "Monaco Index" is seven. I'll let you all think about that one.

This has the look of a BMW round, but even last year the track suited them more than most. They were pretty soundly beaten by the Weissach GT3-Rs the rest of the way. So before a BMW win here (and I fully expect they will) pitches the Porschephiles into despair, a win here is unlikely to presage a sweep of the remaining season. Porsche still holds an aerodynamic advantage, and the Bavarian V8s claimed 444 HP is not a great deal more than that of the GT3-RS. It has been said before that Porsche's famous boxer six has no more to give--over twenty years ago, in fact.

I think this will be a race worth seeing--on the ground or on the tube. For those of you that will be limited to television coverage, hope that NBC is smart enough with their cameras to leave the Audis alone at times and find the racing elsewhere on the track. There will be plenty of it out there.