BAM! - Mid-Ohio practice

setting up for speed

BAM! (British American Motorsport) used the Friday practice session to work 
on setup of the No. 43 YES Network Porsche 911 GT3 RSR for Sunday's American Le 
Mans Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Drivers Peter Baron and Leo 
Hindery, Jr. were disappointed in their time of one minute 28.646 seconds on 
the 2.25-mile road course, but acknowledged there is more speed in the car. The 
practice ended early when two cars crashed on track.

"The times today were by far not our best, and we've obviously got some 
distance to make up. But we're rock-solid in our lines through the turns, and if 
everybody keeps crashing as they've been doing all afternoon, we've got this 
thing in the bag," Hindery joked. "We have two down and 21 to go ahead of us ..."

tire talk

BAM! enjoys the performance advantage of racing on Michelin tires. The team 
also benefits from Michelin's technical support and testing information. Jerry 
Rinaldo, Michelin ALMS operations manager, noted the positive changes in the 
Mid-Ohio track since the first tire test last month. The track re-surfaced the 
turns, which have now settled to a smooth surface.

"We only brought three different compounds here. The experience we had here 
in '02 was that the left-rear tire was the most abused, so we brought some 
medium and soft compounds, and hards for the left rear," Rinaldo said.

"We tested here a month ago - the track had recently concreted all the 
corners and we were graining tires terribly, everybody was. When there is a rough 
surface and the cars accelerate around, it grinds the tires like sandpaper. We 
tested here again this week and the track must have ground the corners or 
smoothed it out because there was hardly any graining. So I think we brought the 
right tires, if the track stays good."

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Sylvia Proudfoot
spur07@cs.com
403 287 3945