Alex Job Racing - Mid-Ohio pole

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
qualifying, June 29, 2002

fast pole 

Alex Job Racing will start first and third on the GT grid for Sunday's 
American Le Mans Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, 
Ohio.  Sascha Maassen set the fast class time on only his second qualifying 
lap, completing the 2.258-mile road course in one minute 25.838 seconds.  
He'll share the No. 23 McKenna Xybernaut Porsche with Lucas Luhr.  Timo 
Bernhard posted the third-fastest GT time (1.26.402) in the No. 22 Porsche he 
drives with Jörg Bergmeister.

"I'm very happy it happened so soon," Maassen said.  "I went once by just to 
see how everything was and then I pushed for one lap.  It was good that I did 
everything good on that lap and didn't make a mistake.  That was it.  
Everything came together in that one lap so we didn't stress the tires too 
much, and that's good for the race."  (Teams must start the race on their 
qualifying tires.)

Bernhard held second place in the class until late in the session, when his 
time was bettered by  less than two-tenths of a second.  "I only had two laps 
because the tires are really best for two laps," he said.  "On my last lap, 
there was another car in front of me and I had to overtake him, and I think I 
lost three or four tenths [of a second].  I  couldn't catch the time from 
Sascha, but I could have been just behind."

space to race

Axel Hohl moves from his day job in the space industry to calling strategy 
for the No. 22 Porsche on race weekends.  Hohl is a project manager for 
Lockheed Martin, working on space shuttle and expendable launch vehicle 
projects.

"There are some corollaries," he said.  "We look for similar attributes like 
temperature and pressure, troubleshooting of problems, issues and strategies, 
being able to spot trends and being able to make decisions based on the 
information at hand."

The good stuff is similar, too.  "The most fun of racing is the competition - 
trying to outdo the other teams in car preparation, support, data analysis, 
strategy - and the thrill of victory.  It's much like watching a shuttle 
launch or a rocket launch and knowing you've been successful.  You never lose 
that thrill."

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Sylvia Proudfoot
403 287 3945
spur07@cs.com