Miller Barrett Racing - Utah race

Miller Barrett Racing survived a wild race and a mechanical failure to earn
a top-10 GT class finish in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series at Miller
Motorsports Park on Saturday. The team started 11th iin class, raced as high
as fifth and finished eighth in the two-hour 45-minute race on the
4.486-mile road course in Tooele, Utah.

 

Kevin Roush of Upland, Calif., drove the first stint. He started 11th on the
GT grid and quickly moved up to fifth. He pitted for a driver change after
41 minutes, meeting the series requirement for a early pitstop. Bryce Miller
of Summit, N.J., took over, returning to the track eighth in class. He
stopped at the 90-minute mark for tires and fuel, regained two positions to
sixth, then had to pit on the last lap, dropping him back to finish eighth.
A post-race inspection showed the car had a broken limited slip differential
that worsened through the race, forcing the extra pitstop.

 

The team will stay in Utah to test at Miller Motorsports Park on Sunday, in
preparation for the final race of the season, at Homestead-Miami Speedway in
Homestead, Fla., on Oct. 10.

 

Bryce Miller:  "I'm really proud of the team. We finished on the lead lap,
even with the third pitstop. Something happened with the car - I thought
maybe a tire was going down or it might have been a problem with a shock
[absorber] or a [sway] bar - and we had to pit for new tires. We fought
really hard for sixth position and I think we could have been able to bring
it home.

 

"We're going to be testing tomorrow here on the short course. That will be a
good opportunity for us to evaluate the car. We'll be able to take some
really big risks and make some big changes with the car setup. It should be
a good day learning for us, and hopefully that will carry over to Homestead
and translate to another step in the right direction."

 

Kevin Roush:  "It was hot out there when the sun was blazing; it was tough.
The car was better. We still had quite a bit of push [understeer], but we
were able to hold our position in the field. We even made up a couple of
spots on the first lap, which was pretty cool. 

 

"For a new team like us, that's never raced here, we wanted to be more
'Energizer Bunny' than [trying to set the] fastest lap speed. We haven't
quite got the balance of the car right, but we can count on racing smarter
and maybe playing a little strategy. We actually had a chance for fifth
today."

 

partners

 

Bryce Miller races with the support of three international sponsors. Marquis
Jet is the recognized leader in private jet cards because it's the only
program that offers exclusive access to NetJets - the gold standard in
private aviation - 25 hours at a time. IPC Information Systems is a leading
provider of mission-critical communications solutions to financial services
firms. Total Lubricants is the world's fourth-largest publicly traded
integrated international oil and gas company.

 

- brycemiller.net - 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Sylvia Proudfoot

sylvia@spurcom.ca

403 287 3945