TEAM REPORTS (LAGUNA SECA) - Intersport Pre Race Report
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Though the team made great strides with their newly acquired Lola, an early race incident at Petit Le Mans left the team scrambling to recover.
Purely a racing incident," commented team owner and driver, Clint Field. "It was unavoidable... I came up on two cars spinning and my only option was to gather the car up and put it into a slide. We almost dodged it, but as luck would have it, I got sideways and caught the rear end of the Fernandez Racing Acura. At point of impact I couldnt have been doing more than 45 mph, but the hit came right in the center of the car and did serious damage to the tub."
The crew immediately packed up and was on the road back to their Dublin, Ohio race shop in an effort to get the car repaired. In short, the team had about 4 days to do what would normally take two months.
The LMP1 Lola was showing massive potential in its short appearance at Petit Le Mans. From the drop of the green flag, Jon Field was slicing is way through the field with authority.
"The car is great," noted Jon. "I think there's a lot of potential here. I had no problem putting the car where I needed. It cornered extremely well and demonstrated terrific straight line speed. I'm really happy driving it.
Crew Chief, Brian Alder concurred. "The car responded very well to the changes we made throughout the week. It was very predictable... we got comfortable knowing that the changes we made would have the results we expected. Plus, the car is very easy to work on. It's laid out very well."
While disappointed with the turn of events at Petit, the team hopes to be rewarded for their efforts with a podium finish at Laguna.
"The guys have done an amazing job of getting us ready," said Clint. "We want to end the season with a good run and collect information about the car so we can improve for 2008. But, for sure, we'd like to see the crew rewarded for their hard work. They put forth an Herculean effort to get us here this week. I'm amazed."
The final round of the 2007 American Le Mans Series is the Monterey Sports Car Championships at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The four-hour race is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PT on Saturday, October 20. SPEED will air the race live from 5:30 to 10 p.m. ET. Live coverage from American Le Mans Radio and IMSA Live Timing and Scoring will be available at americanlemans.com.
The American Le Mans Series features 12 races in 2007, including the prestigious season-opening Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (March 17) and the 1,000-mile/10-hour Petit Le Mans. All other races are sprint endurance formats, ranging from an hour, 40 minutes at Long Beach to four hours at both Road America and the Series finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. All events are televised by CBS, NBC or SPEED.
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The American Le Mans Series is the premium brand of motorsport in North America, featuring high-tech sports cars from the most prestigious automobile manufacturers in the world. Its unique four classes of competition showcase exotic, open-top prototypes and sophisticated production-based GT cars, all competing on the track at the same time. The American Le Mans Series competes at the premier road racing tracks across North America and at selected temporary street circuits in major urban markets. With a 2007 television package that includes five network broadcasts on CBS and NBC and seven telecasts on SPEED, plus live broadcasts across Europe, the Series delivers a global marketing platform that is unmatched in motorsports. The Series, founded in 1999 by Georgia entrepreneur Don Panoz, represents a mirror image to the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world's most famous and authentic automobile race. The American Le Mans Series features elite marques such as Audi, Porsche, Corvette, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Panoz, and premium brands such as Michelin, Yokohama, Kumho, Lowe's, Shell and many others.