Orbit Racing - Trois-Riv race

rough race

Orbit Racing recorded a seventh-place GT finish in Sunday's attrition-packed 
American Le Mans Series race on the 1.52-mile street circuit in 
Trois-Rivières, Qué.

Peter Baron started the No. 43 YES Network Porsche 911 GT3 RS from fourth on 
the GT grid.  He lost a lap because of his position relative to the safety car 
during the first caution period, just seven minutes into the three-hour race. 
 He was then hit by the same prototype that hit Leo Hindery in the YES car 
one week ago, his pitstop was delayed one lap during the second caution because 
of the timing of the pit opening and he incurred a penalty when the pit-lane 
speed limiter in the car failed and he entered the pits too fast.

Despite the difficulties, Baron was fifth in class when he handed over to 
Marc Lieb at 1h15.  Lieb moved to fourth, then pitted with a suspected tire 
puncture at two hours.  He returned the next lap with a broken rear axle.  The crew 
replaced the axle in 22 minutes, but lost 20 laps.  The car finished seventh 
in class.  It was Lieb's first ALMS finish in four starts with two Porsche 
teams, after three previous mechanical failures.

Peter Baron

"It was a terrible string of unfortunate circumstances, starting with being 
the first car that the Audi passed when the yellow flags came out at the start 
[causing Orbit to lose a lap], then getting hit by the 675 car, which 
flat-spotted the tires and made the rest of the stint absolutely unbearable.  We lost 
an axle and had a pit-lane speed limiter go bad.  We pretty much used up our 
entire season's worth of bad luck in one race.  Hopefully, it's all gone!"

Marc Lieb

"We had bad luck that just continued.  At the beginning we had a bad yellow 
so we lost one lap, then the pit-speed limiter didn't work so we lost another 
lap because we had a long stop-and-go [penalty] and then the driveshaft broke.  
I thought it was a flat tire, so I came in and changed tires, but it was the 
driveshaft.  The guys did a fantastic job and changed it quickly.  But I 
finished a race in the ALMS!  That's the only positive thing today."

Tim Munday, technical director

"All in all, not a very good day.  We went a lap down very early on and got 
caught by the yellows, but we could have fought back.  Then the pit-speed 
limiter failed for some strange reason, so Peter was speeding, then Marc was 
speeding on the way out and they gave us a one-minute penalty, which is a bit 
strong.  Finally, an axle broke, which is strange for the axles we use, top-quality 
ones.  That was the end of the race."

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Sylvia Proudfoot
spur07@cs.com
403 287 3945