Alex Job Racing - Miami advance

new challenge

Alex Job Racing will have a short trip from its headquarters in Tavares, 
Fla., to the American Le Mans Series race set for Oct. 5 in Miami, but 
proximity doesn't equal advantage.  The 1.57-mile street circuit is new and 
untested, so the team will have the double challenge of learning a new track 
and finding the optimum car setup in just two hours of practice.

Jeff Gamroth is crew chief for the No. 23 McKenna Xybernaut Porsche driven by 
Lucas Luhr and Sascha Maassen.  He will start with a setup from similar 
tracks, then fine-tune it.  "You can get close with the gearing right out of 
the box," he said.  "Because it's a street course, you know it will have some 
slow corners, 90-degree corners and hairpins, and it's going to be bumpier 
than normal.  For setup, we're going to go softer than we would on a road 
course because of the bumps and the low-speed corners where you need traction 
coming off the turns.  Aerodynamically, you put as much downforce on as you 
can because you're not going to be hindered by top speed.  You want lots of 
downforce and lots of grip."

But he notes the short practice time may limit the team's options.  "You go 
there with as good a setup as you can based on the information you have, then 
you have to make the correct decisions between sessions," he said.  "But it 
may not be optimum.  Even if we decide to change a gear, we may not have 
time."

Jim Higgs, crew chief for the No. 22 Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister and Timo 
Bernhard, said the team will continue its practice of focusing on the race, 
rather than developing different settings for qualifying.  "Our method of 
operation is to work more on the race setup than qualifying setup," he said.  
"It gives us a better package that will be fast for the whole stint, rather 
than fast for 10 or 20 laps then slow 'way down."
 
With hurricanes on the horizon, Higgs notes the team's experience may be its 
biggest asset.  "If it turns into a wet race, there are some things we can do 
to the chassis to make it a better combination and we have a couple of 
different rain tire compounds we can select," he noted.  "The rain is a big 
equalizer among teams, so we rely on experience because we don't have a lot 
of time to test things in the rain."

Miami triple

Race fans will enjoy a triple feature of road racing in Miami, with the 
American Le Mans Series in action on Saturday, followed by the CART 
Championship Series and Trans-Am Series on Sunday.  "This has never happened 
before; this is the first time the ALMS and CART have been co-features," team 
owner Alex Job said.  "We're excited about returning to Miami and we're 
excited about being a co-feature with two such outstanding series."

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Sylvia Proudfoot
spur07@cs.com
403 287 3945