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Portland International Raceway

05/08/2001

Saturday

First Session

Portland, Oregon, USA--Saturday morning's first official session is a one hour combined practice for all classes. The track by all reports remains slipper, though there is some hope that rubber going down will improve the grip over the weekend; barring rain of course, which would take us back to square one. On his tenth lap out Klaus Graf (left) is able to tour his Panoz LMP1-R in 1:04.951, a little better than a second quicker than yesterday's best for the #51 car. It takes Audi's Capello and Kristensen twenty-four laps to better that and the Biela / Pirro Audi #2 will not get it done in this session. In the first session Panoz continues to play the heroes, flogging the two year-old cars into a split of the two Audi Sport North America R8s. The Champion Audi knock three-tenths off yesterday's best, pulling themselves closer to the two factory teams. Just a bit more than a second now cover the entire LMP 900 field of five cars.

In LMP 675, the KnightHawk Lola is able to pull a half-second closer to Dick Barbour's Reynard than they were yesterday.

The two Corvettes ran ahead of the Saleen S7R this morning, not because of faster times by the yellow team, but because the swoopy Ford-powered Konrad car ran about two seconds slower. That may reflect a concentration on race set-up.

In GT, the BMW GTRs seemed to re-assert themselves over the McKenna Porsches, this time with PTG's #10 with Bill Auberlen at the wheel heading the GT field, followed by BMW Motorsport's JJ Lehto. The times of the two BMW's are almost identical to those of the McKenna Porsches yesterday. In fact, Auberlen's 1:13.674 is one thousandth of a second off Christian Menzel's Friday time.

This practice is followed immediately by the Trans Am feature, the Tommy Bahama 125. What an addition the "new" Trans Am is to these ALMS race weekends. There are good crowds in the stands, particularly in the Festival Curves, with loads of 9-year-old boys cheering and yelling over the banging, rubbing, and spins in front of them. Portland is getting a really big show this weekend.