Mid Ohio - 25/08/2001   Friday Practice Report   © Tom Kjos Lexington, Ohio, USA--The morning fog here at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course lifted soon enough for today's one and only official American Le Mans Series practice session to run on time. The atmosphere is wet and sticky, but no rain is predicted for today or tomorrow. If that is the case, we can throw away yesterday's testing times, done entirely in the wet and about fifteen seconds off today's practice times. Eight of the nine LMP 900 prototypes made it out for practice today, the same number, and same cars as did yesterday for testing. Missing track time so far is the Dyson Racing Riley & Scott Mark IIIC, still having a hangover from its problems in Canada last week. "We are waiting for an electronic part, the same one that gave us problems at Mosport," said Team Manager Pat Smith. "Someone thought it was more important to get married this week than to deliver our part. Fed Ex should have it here by 10:30 this morning, so the first time we will be on the track is for qualifying," he continued. In the grand scheme of things..getting married, or going racing? Tough one isn't it? David Brabham had the #50 Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S at the top of the timing sheet this morning with 1:14.638 clocking, 108.810 mph. The official track record was set in 1999 by CART driver Dario Franchitti at a 1:05.347 lap time and 124.394 mph, and tied by Gil de Ferran last year. Tom Kristensen had Audi Sport North America's R8 are just behind at 1:14.721. A gap of better than a second separated those two from the rest of the field, headed by Klaus Graf's Panoz and Emanuele Pirro's Audi Sport R8. Emmanuele Collard put the #8 Cadillac LMP 01 in fifth position, but nearly two seconds down from Brabham's fastest time. Johnny Herbert managed a 1:16.651 this morning after leading yesterday's wet testing session. The Taylor / Angelelli Cadillac and the Field / Field / Field Lola Judd rounded out the field, both cars in the 1:18 bracket. Not unexpectedly, LMP 675 was headed by the Didier de Radigues #5 Barbour Racing Reynard Judd. What is unexpected, is the scant three-tenths second between de Radigues and the Field LMP Lola. And in a mild surprise John Graham hauled the second Barbour Judd around to a second in class placing, ahead of Claudia Huertgen's effort in the KnightHawk Racing Lola Nissan. The new-to-the-series Southern Comfort Pilbeam MP84 Nissan could only manage a 1:26.519 in the hands of drivers Jimmy Adams and Joe Blacker, burying the small prototype deep in the GT ranks. In GTS, Johnny O'Connell headed the time sheet early in the #3 Corvette C5-R, replaced later by Ron Fellows with a best of 1:22.483 on lap 30. That held up for a few minutes, until Terry Borcheller's 1:21.767 on his lap 32. So the Saleen S7R shows its speed again. This not being a race day, we expect that the Corvettes will take a beating at the hands of the Konrad Saleen. Tomorrow will be a different story if the Saleen 'luck' is as it has been in the last few races. Shane Lewis got a 1:25.821 out of the #45 American Viperacing Dodge Viper GTS-R on lap 8, not bettered by David Donohue later in the session. The Tom Weikhardt / Joe Ellis sister car is only three and a half seconds slower than that to define the back of the GTS pack. JJ Lehto grabbed the fast time of the session in GT, wheeling his BMW M3 GTR around in 1:23.860, 96.933 mph. He was followed by teammate Fredrik Ekblom, the latter in an almost dead heat (.005 difference) with Randy Pobst's effort in the Alex Job Racing #22 Porsche 911 GT3-RS next. Boris Said followed, with the two PTG M3s sandwiching the second AJR car. The McKenna-sponsored Alex Job Porsches are right there in the mix on a track that is assumed to favor the BMW M3s. The huge schedule of SCCA Regional Racing leaves the ALMS teams with only one practice session at this meeting today, so the next outing is qualifying, at 4:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport