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Audi Presents Petit Le Mans

06/10/2001

Race

Round-Up

© Tom Kjos

Summarizing the Fourth Petit Le Mans

The fourth running of the Petit Le Mans was as keenly anticipated as any sportscar event in the USA has been in recent years, and on some levels it didn't disappoint. LMP 900 provided a solid three-car battle until nearly the end, albeit from different cars than we expected. LMP 675 started with a bang and ended with a whimper. Corvette Racing managed to throw away Ron Fellow's ALMS GTS driver's championship. JJ Lehto got into just enough trouble to lose the third straight ALMS driver's championship in which he was a close contender - to Jörg. Jörg Müller managed to lose the race even while he won the championship, and reminded us again that Road Atlanta is not his favorite track. American Viperacing finished a problem-plagued season on the podium, and won our respect in the process.

Nine TMS race reports from Braselton, plus notes and features, make a blow-by-blow description here unnecessary. We have thus taken a summary look at each class, but included a detailed review of the early part of the race. Although that first section may be a bit repetitive, we think it is important to set the 'flavor' of this very unusual race. What it became was very much determined within little more than an hour after the start.

The First Hour - Setting the Stage

There was attrition before the start, even aside from the ten-percent of the field (four cars) that started from the pit lane. Just before the green flag, Jon Field (#37 Lola Judd) and Max Angelelli (#8 Cadillac) made contact with each other coming out of turn twelve at the head of the start / finish straight. Field said later, "The Cadillac went wide left and clipped me. I tried to avoid the accident and lost it. It's a real shame." Whatever the cause of it, the Intersport team has had more than its share of problems this season and an early departure was hardly a surprise, but still a huge disapointment for Field and friends. An accident before the green flag is something of a record though, even for Intersport.

So only thirty-six of the forty-one cars expected to be on the grid actually saw the green flag wave, even if only momentarily, since a yellow for the Field car immediately followed. Among the cars not taking the start from the formation lap were Dyson Racing's Riley & Scott Mark IIIC (power steering pump), Orbit's #32 Porsche 911 GT3-RS (missed starting window to leave pits for grid), Park Place Racing's #05 Saleen S7R (damage repair from warm-up shunt), and Team Bucknum Racing's #31 Pilbeam MP84/Nissan (front suspension). There were seven 'Grand American Road Racing Association entrants' that made the field; four of the seven (including the #37 Lola) would start late or not at all.

To ensure that we felt right at home, the Barbour Racing #15 Porsche GT3-R managed to get itself assigned to the back of the grid behind the Fellows Corvette and the Brookspeed Viper. That meant we didn't have to be retrained out of our habit of finding the back of the field by looking for the silver Porsche.

We watched the start from the wall at the exit of turn one. The GTS race, in the order Corvette, Saleen, Viper, Ferrari looked great right from the start. In GT, the usual suspects (BMW Motorsport, PTG, AJR, and Petersen Motorsports) were flying in tandem as they usually do. This might be a larger field, but the additions were having no impact in this class, at least for now. Where a newcomer was giving us something better was in LMP675, where the battle between Barbour Racing's Reynard Judds and ROC's Reynard Volkswagen was joined early. The prototypes were pretty much in the expected order, only Dyson's #16 R&S missing and needing to charge from the back; that would happen quickly enough not to be a big deal in this 1,000 mile event. So eight minutes later, the green came back out, and we did get a few flying laps. James Weaver began taking the Dyson R&S up through the field. Ron Fellows didn't even get a lap in. An electrical short killed the engine and the smoke of burning wiring came from under the dashboard. On-course assistance from the crew led to his disqualification. That would give Terry Borcheller (#26 Konrad Saleen S7R) the ALMS GTS driver's championship if he could complete fifty laps; this race already had the look of one where that is no sure thing.

Stefan Johansson was assessed a stop and go for passing before the green, but he would have to wait to serve the sentence, since Gunnar Jeannette nailed the wall at turn 8, leaving a litter of Porsche pieces on the track. It's 12:14, we're on the second yellow, and five of seven 'GARRA cars' in some kind of trouble. Unlike the Indy 500, this did not look like it was going to be a day when the guests stole the silver.

Shortly before the half-hour, we had some racing--Terry Borcheller took the #26 Saleen S7R past Andy Pilgrim's #4 Corvette into the GTS lead.

We soon went back to problems, errors, and penalties, though, when the Brookspeed viper pitted to check on a missing engine (it was there when they lifted the hood) and was penalized for a fire bottle violation.
LMP675 was also providing the welcome distraction of good racing when a few minutes later, the ROC Reynard passed the #05 Barbour car for the class lead. A minute later we found out that, too, was an aberration--just more problems. The Barbour car came in and removed the engine cover to chase down what was thought to be a transmission problem. Soon after, Klaus Graf brought in the #51 Panoz into the paddock to join the growing parking lot of former racers. An engine this time; it had been a tough weekend for the Graf / Lagorce Panoz.

Then, at 12:44, the leading Audi Sport North America R8 of Tom Kristensen was into the wall at turn 1. We had the third full course caution in the first forty-five minutes of the race. It is initially thought that a deflating tire caused the off. A later inspection finds the tires to be intact. Now the two teams that have fought closely since Sears Point are down to one car each. That improved the outlook for the two privateer Audis and the Dyson Racing R&S. Any hope for a return of the V10 Judd in the Intersport Lola ended when the car was excluded for work on the course. A few minutes later, after a stop on the course, the #33 MSB Motorsports Ferrari 360 Modena was the third car excluded for that offence. This maiden outing of the Modena has not been particularly successful. Certainly some 'teething' is expected--the real problem is that the car has been quite uncompetitive, mired deep in the GT field (but it was its debut).

So we finally come to the end of the first hour. There was actually some racing going on. David Brabham, flying along, was working through already lapped traffic, made a pass into second place then hounded Emanuele Pirro in the leading Joest R8. That was great stuff, and continued into the second hour, as did the battles at the front of GTS and GT. The early story of this race had been in race cars into walls, sand traps, and pits, however.

Early in the second hour, a vibration brought the ROC Volkwagen into the pits for an unscheduled stop. Would we lose both of the cars that were to make this class one of most interesting of the day?

At 1:20, real disaster struck; a blow to our hopes for a classic racing competition. The Brookspeed Viper and Brabham's Panoz made contact at the end of the front straight. The Viper's day is ended, the Panoz limped back to the pits for lengthy repairs. There would be no challenge to the Audis today. At the time it looked as if the Viper moved into the passing Panoz; Brabham says as much. Later, the stewards penalize Brabham for the incident, the Australian acknowledging that he made an over optimistic move. Just three minutes later the #5 Barbour Reynard Judd went behind the wall. The LMP 675 race was well and truly over.

The first hour set the tone for this race. It continued through mistake, shunt, error, and penalty. We won't attempt an hour-by-hour of the rest of the race, we did that already in TMS race coverage. With the first hour-plus above to set the stage, we'll look at what the major stories were in each class.

Grand Touring - Driver's Championship On the Line

JJ Lehto and Jörg Müller have been split for the first time in three years in ALMS competition. Separated by only a single point, they will determine the driver's championship here with the help of new driving partners. In the end, it will be the damage of collisions that takes the Lehto car out of contention and finally off the podium. Although he wins the driver's championship, a mistake by Jörg (he helps clean a windshield on a pit stop by giving do-driver Dirk Müller a rag) hands the race to the PTG "dream team" (as Stuckie calls it) of Hans Stuck, Boris Said, and Bill Auberlen. In the process they halt Bill Auberlen's record string of most ALMS starts without a win at twenty-five. Driver's championship or not, it's a fair bet that Road Atlanta is not Jörg Müller's favorite race track.

Although the Petersen Motorsports Porsche GT3 makes a real fight of it, Alex Job Racing puts its #23 Lucas Luhr / Sascha Maassen Porsche GT3 RS on the last step of the podium. The Callaway C12-R is never a factor in this race. After watching their times in qualifying we wonder how they ever ended up on the class pole at Le Mans, but then recall the Shane Lewis quote we reported during the race. "This car just goes fast...." is the paraphrase. The sense of the rest of it is that it does not brake, handle or turn well. There is comparatively little of that latter stuff on the eight-plus mile Le Mans course. We were in the pits for the finish. Tom Milner and his team were thrilled by their second, and most important, victory over their German 'cousins.' The hugs all around were the second most exuberant along pit row--read on for the first.

Grand Touring Sport - Corvette gets the Race, Borcheller gets the Championship, AVR gets our Hearts

Shortly before the three-hour mark, the #88 Ferrari 550 Maranello went behind the wall. They were joined in their various struggles by two other challengers, the #25 Walter Brun / Toni Seiler Saleen, and the #45 American Viperacing Viper GTS-R. All that left us with a two-car race between the surviving Corvette of Andy Pilgrim, Kelly Collins, and Franck Freon and the Konrad Saleen of now ALMS champion Terry Borcheller, Franz Konrad, and Charlie Slater. It is fascinating to see a competitive Ferrari Grand Touring race car; it has been entirely too long. What has happened in the American Viperacing team is even more interesting. The #45 car of Anthony Kumpen and Mike Hezemans has shown the pace of the leaders. They clearly did not start this race, as AVR have in the past, and as many others did this race, to wait for other cars to break. But they have had their own share of problems. A shunt cost them a door, replaced later by one salvaged from the Brookspeed Viper. At the end, their third place on the podium was thirteen laps back of the winning Corvette C5-R, at least half of that number due to penalties and pit time due to shunts and mechanical work including a pad, rotor, and caliper change-out. The Viper has found a competitive pace in the last race of the season. This was a happy team indeed. They celebrated their place on the podium as if it was a win at Le Mans itself, and if anyone did, they deserved the moment. "The most expensive third place of my life," smiled Tom Weickardt. Little problems at Konrad Saleen finally gave Corvette its sixth win in eight ALMS races this season by a seven lap margin, not representative of how close this race really was.

LMP 675 - The Race that Wasn't

The last race of the season finally attracted the only decent mini-prototype field aside from Le Mans. Only two cars really counted. At least that is what we thought at the beginning. Soon enough, neither of those counted at all, gone from the race. With the demise of the Barbour Racing #5 'lead' car, and of the ROC Volkswagen within the first two hours, it only remained for the Milka Duno /John Graham / Scott Maxwell #57 Barbour Reynard Judd to stay out of trouble and drive home for the win. Admittedly that was not an easy task in this race. But they did just that. None of the Nissan-powered cars had the pace to challenge, and the Reynard 01Q rolled home to a twenty-lap win. Michael Johnson's Archangel team had a great run, nevertheless.

LMP 900 - The Race That Wasn't, Part Two

The expectations for this race were as high as any in recent memory, outside of Le Mans at the end of the GT1 era. The late season charge of Panoz contributed, as did the relatively quick success of the Dyson Racing Riley & Scott, and two serious challenges in recent races by Champion Racing's customer R8. Little was expected of the Cadillacs, and they exceeded that. The early hours saw the loss of one Panoz, then one Audi, then the other Panoz. That left two privateer Audis and the Dyson R&S in pursuit of the lone remaining Joest Audi. James Weaver and Butch Leitzinger pushed the Riley & Scott as hard as they could, but it really never found the pace and was finally done in by a failed clutch less than three hours into the race.

After that it was largely a three-car race, though the Cadillacs stayed close enough to stick their noses into podium territory on leader pit stops. Ultimately the Taylor / Angelelli / Tinseau #8 Caddy landed in fourth, some 12 laps out of the win after being as close as a single lap out of third at the eight hour mark. By then, the Frank Biela / Emanuele Pirro Audi had pulled out to a two-lap lead, but all three remaining Audis were on the same lap just before 7 PM. Once the race settled down to these three it became quite clear that there is not a huge margin between the 2000 and 2001 model Audi R8s. Not enough to accommodate mistakes by the new car(s), anyway. But this was a race where the metronome-like Joest operation got it all together again, and they took it by doing everything right--in the pits and on the track.

A Fitting End?

Perhaps, perhaps not. An Audi Sport North America win in typical Joest style was a consistent cap on a (so far) two-year run into the record books. Panoz' early failure didn't fit with the season after Le Mans. BMW dominated the race, as they have the season. Porsche had a lot of cars at the finish, but only one team that could race with the GTRs. LMP 675 was only momentarily something other than the bore it has been since March. Corvette and Saleen carried their season-long battle into the last hour of the last race. Not a classic, then, but certainly fitting with all that has gone before. And why would it ever have occurred to anyone not to finish the season at this, the 1,000 mile mini-classic?