24 hours is a long time to do anything let alone drive a 175mph race car around one of the worlds most famous race tracks. The practice sessions went smoothly as I jumped back and forth between the koni challenge car and the Rolex car. I knew we weren’t going to have the fastest car due to the fact that we were racing the best of the best in the world. My teammate John Mayes qualified the car 35th out of the 40 or so GT cars. Starting at the back of the field on the start, John just played it safe and actually picked up some spots due to other competitors crashing. John went smooth up until spinning while trying to pass another competitor in the bus stop which resulted in a damaged front bumper and radiators. The crew worked hard, at what would be a familiar repair, and got the car back out within about 20 laps. Out of the running of the race ( but still with over 21 hours of racing to go) we just cycled through our driver line up so that every one got their seat team. I got in the car around 4:30pm on saturday afternoon and drove until about 5:30. During that time I set a lap time of 1:53.6 which would be the fastest lap for all the drivers in the car. I was then done up until my 3:30 - 5:30 AM stint. So I went back to the hotel to TRY to sleep. I called down to the hotel lobby for a wake up call of 1:45 AM ( the lady thought I was nuts) Upon arriving to the track at 2:30 AM I found that our car and been back in the garage AGAIN for the same damage yet with another of my teammates. The conditions when I got in the car are the worst conditions you can race in. Not only was this the first time that I raced under the stars, but also the track was cold and wet. I started my 2 hour stint on rain tires, yet knew they would not last long because the track was drying up. I then opted to come in to get slicks. The next 5 - 7 laps were extremely tough, fighting the car and trying to get heat in the tires. The temperature was in the mid 40s with still some drizzle in the air which only made it even harder to get heat in the tires. Every corner I would approach would be the same…. Hit the brakes and the rears would lock up ( no Anti-lock brakes on this car) then once I finally got the car slowed down I would turn in for the corner. The car would just wash out all the way to the edge of the road and just did not want to turn. Then went I would go to pick up the gas to exit the corner the rears would just rev up like they were on ice. However, after a couple of laps the heat got in the tires and every lap the car felt better and better. Just as the sun was rising I came in to the pits to turn it over to one of my teammates. At this point my job was done for the weekend, and I could sit back and watch. Although, our car may have not had the best of success TRG cars overall did. The 66,67,62 TRG cars finished 2nd,3rd, and 4th in the GT class standings. This was a great experience for me and look forward to going back and doing it again.

Our koni Challenge team this past weekend had many highs and lows. We rolled off the trailer for the first practice on thursday morning and within 3 minuets on the track we lost severe oil pressure in our motor. Although, the motor did not blow up or even loose fluid, we knew it would not last much longer. The crew then worked for hours preparing another motor to be up into the car. During this time I missed another valuable practice session. After the new motor was almost in the car, they realized that the motor had an issue and that it would not work! Now it was on to ANOTHER motor that was just recently delivered to the track thursday afternoon. By this time we knew we were not going to make the afternoon qualifying session for the race. The crew worked real hard to make sure that this motor was 100% and did not over look any detail ( knowing that we are not going to have any real time to test it) Since we did not put in 1 lap during the Thursday qualifying session I would be forced to start at the back of a 43 car field ( 97 car field total counting the ST cars)
Friday morning I show up to the track and the car is running and looking good. Perhaps the weekend wont be so bad after all. We only had 1 practice session friday morning before the race in the early afternoon. Although, optimistic as to how the car was going to do due to the lack of practice time practice went well. During practice my teammate Andy Lally put the car in 2nd overall. About half way through the session I got back in the car and within a couple laps put it P1 with a time of 2:01.4. After that lap I knew we had a good car so we decided to park the car and not put the added minuets of practice on the car.
In the race I started 43rd in class and with nearly 100 cars on the track I knew this was going to be tricky. However, slowly but surely I worked my way up to the top 10 within a little of an hour of racing. I then turned it over to my teammate Andy Lally who came out of the pits in about 20th. He worked his way to the top 10 before pitting again for gas and left side tires. On the last race re-start, the officials sent a string of ST cars out of the pits right in front of Andy in the GS field. This separated him from the other GS cars ahead of him. After getting around the slower ST cars andy worked his way up to 8th place. So considering we did not get any practice on thursday and the circumstances of the weekend we were happy with this result and look forward to LimeRock Park.

-scott