GTO Lime Rock Pre Race Report
Remote Area Medical #7 SPEED World Challenge GTO Ready for New England Grand Prix Lakeville, Conn. – June 29, 2005 Jim Osborn, driver of the Remote Area Medical #7 GTO from Autosport Development feels pretty upbeat about this weekend’s round 6 of the SPEED World Challenge GT Series. Osborn and teammate, Stu Hayner, will participate in the SPEED World Challenge events at the New England Grand Prix taking place at the historical Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut. The World Challenge races are scheduled for Saturday July 2nd and will air Sunday, July 3rd on SPEED. Osborn has been enjoying a very successful season in the Touring Car division before making the jump to GT. He had a career high 9th place finish at St. Petersburg and a 12th place finish last month at Mid- Ohio. He ran his first GT race in the #7 GTO at the Grand Prix of Cleveland finishing 20th. “I had a ball in the car,” said Osborn after Sunday’s race in Cleveland. “Our plan was to go out and get used to the car and bring it back in one piece. I think we did that and more. Finishing the race was very important from a development standpoint. Being out there in a race let us collect important data in real world conditions. Practice is always good, but as a driver, running an actual race allows you to develop a real feel for the car and provide the engineers much better feedback. For our first time out, it couldn’t have gone better.” “I’m pretty excited about Lime Rock,” Osborn went on. “I think the shorter track will allow me to focus on building my confidence in the car. Because of the number of laps we’ll do here, I will be seeing the same corners over and over providing more opportunities to find the car’s sweet spot. At a place like Road America, you might only see each turn 8-10 times per session. At Lime Rock we’ll do 20 or more laps every time we go out. That’s important to us right now.” In off track activities, Osborn, with his endless dedication to seriously ill children and their families, will take time out to visit and have dinner with kids at Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall camp. To date, nearly 100,000 seriously ill children from throughout the United States and 31 countries have attended Hole in the Wall Camps free of charge. They are a not-for-profit organization totally supported by charitable contributions. Hole in the Wall Camps are the dream of actor Paul Newman, who started the first camp in 1988 and has been the driving force ever since. Osborn and his Chili Pepper Racing team have campaigned with the slogan ‘Racing for the Health of it’ supporting the T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital and raising funds for the Lighthouse Family Retreat. The New England Grand Prix schedule calls for the SPEED GT race to run Saturday at 12:40pm and the Touring Car race to run on Saturday at 4:10pm. Both races will air Sunday, July 3rd on SPEED with the Touring Car race at 4pm and the GT race at 5pm. All times are EST. Autosport Development competes as part of the SPEED World Challenge GT Series. All events are nationally televised on SPEED channel (formerly Speedvision). In 2005 the SPEED World Challenge Series schedule will include street races and temporary circuits in Cleveland, Denver and St. Petersburg, and make the traditional stops around the country at great tracks like Sebring, Road Atlanta, Lime Rock Park, Infineon, Mosport, Portland, Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca. For more information about Autosport Development visit www.GoAutosport.com For more information about Chili Pepper Racing, visit www.chilipepperracing.org For more information on Remote Area Medical, visit www.ramusa.org For more information about Trenton Forging, visit www.trentonforging.com For more information about SCCA SPEED World Challenge, visit www.world-challenge.com ________________________________________________________ John Thawley ~ Creative Communications Group ~ 248.356.5699