ALMS: BMW Team PTG 3 hour report
18 September 1999
BMW Team PTG notes: race hour three, Sept. 18 Petit Le Mans, Road Atlanta race six, American Le Mans Series BMW Team PTG cars have moved up to second, third and fourth place in the GT class after three hours of the 10-hour, 1000-mile Petit Le Mans. The #6 BMW M3 of Boris Said and Hans Stuck is second behind the #23 Porsche. The #7 M3, driven by Peter Cunningham, Brian Simo and Brian Cunningham is third. The #10 car, with drivers Darren Law, Mark Simo and Johannes van Overbeek, is fourth, despite the early loss of the car's anti-lock braking system. Hans Stuck, driver, #6 BMW M3 "I'm happy so far. The car is running fine. The only tricky thing is that we have to be a little bit easy on the tires, because we have only two drivers and neither Boris or I can drive a full [three-driver] shift. I'm pleased that the traffic is good. The fast [prototype] guys are really taking care today, so I'm having fun." Brian Simo, driver, #7 BMW M3 "I was just biding my time. It's pretty uneventful so far, although dealing with the traffic was the tough part early in the race. [After a year's absence from endurance racing] It's hard to gauge how fast to push it and how many risks to take. We're giving up positions to the faster cars, but the important thing is to be there at the end. It's quite different from a driver's perspective." Darren Law, driver, #10 BMW M3 "About five to 10 laps into the race, I came to the hardest braking zone at the end of the back straight. When I got to the pedal, everything locked up. From that point on, the ABS was out. What was tough was locking up unexpectedly, so I had flat spots on the tires and had to pit early. After the stop, I had to conserve pedal pressure on the brakes, so it cost us about a second a lap. But overall, it's not a big deal because we can still make it to 10 hours."
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