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American Series WATKINS GLEN AUGUST 2005 GT RACE REPORT by Harry Haggard SET UPWe worked on setup throughout the day and came to our final race setup after qualifying during the evening practice. Initially we put wedge in the chassis to favor RH corners. This proved to be a hindrance during hard braking. We worked on shock settings, particularly low speed compression to speed up the transitions. Our beginning spring rates, stabilizer settings and wing angle/wicker bill choices were good. We qualified 7 th behind 3 BMW's, 2 factory Pontiac GTO's and the #26 AASCO car driven by Patrick Long. RACE STRATEGYThe race distance was 82 laps and our pit window opened at 30 laps. Our plan was to pit on the first full course caution after lap 30, or on lap 51 if all green. During the pre-race drivers meetings Grand Am announced that if the pace car came out it would be for a minimum of two laps and they reserved the right to go green without the field completing a full lap behind the pace car with its lights out. RACE#80 started 7 th in GT (29 th overall) and #81 started 21 st in GT (43 rd overall). David passed #64 just after the start and #36 on the 2 nd lap. Mae came to race, jumped the start and got a stop and go. She gets credit for being a racer. David passed the #17 BMW on Lap 9 and the order was 16-26-21-80-17-36-73-22-57-14. On Lap 10 the #77 DP hit the #94 GT that put the Porsche hard into the wall and brought out the 1 st caution. The race went green on Lap 18 and the 2 nd caution was out 2 laps later for the #23 GT in the gravel. Green again on Lap 23. After 40 minutes, we are 4 th , -2 seconds behind the leader. On lap 30 our fuel number is 9.8 right on schedule. On Lap 31 #36 pits on the green. On lap 37 caution #3 comes out. Numbers 16, 26, 21,73,14 and 35 all pit before the overall leader order is settled. We stay out and after all the DP's stop we are 3 rd in line behind the pace car with the overall leader behind us and ahead of every other GT car. Our fuel number is 5. At the beginning of Lap 45 we get the wave by. I thought Grand American would go green on Lap 46 so I called David in without catching the field. The pit stop was good, Craig in, David out but the pace car got to the pylon (which closes pit exit until the field goes by) before we got by the pit exit line. Grand Am stayed yellow and we went to the end of the line on the same lap as the leader. The race went green on Lap 47 and Craig was 10 th . He moved to 7 th on Lap 50 and 6 th on Lap 55 but the car was becoming a hand full and had major under steer on all RH corners. We didn't know it at the time but the LR was loosing pressure. By the end of the race, there was a 10# difference left to right and we were extremely lucky we didn't have a LR tire failure. On lap 60 caution #4 came out and Mae pitted on Lap 61. Mae out, David in. Mae drove 1 hour 45 minutes and moved up 7 positions. She did a 1:20.733, which was within 3 seconds of the leaders at that point. It was by far her best effort this year. The green came out on Lap 65 and Craig did not have a racecar to fight with. He passed #14 somehow but then got passed by #36. It was caution #5 on Lap 68 and green again Lap 70. Just after the restart, #65 got by and the checker came on Lap 72. Finish order was 64-16-36-22-65-80-14/17-05-26-73-88-35/81/55-32-23-43-21-41-57-94. In post race tech, it was found that the ride height was too low on the #64 factory Pontiac GTO (the GT winner). Historically Grand Am will not exclude the car but will award point and prize money for last place. They will get to keep the win. Harry Haggard Engineer, Synergy Racing |
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