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Following its
first points-scoring finish last time out at Mid-Ohio, the Drayson-Barwell ALMS
team moved on to the classic Road America 4-hour race this Saturday with its
Aston Martin Vantage GT2. This was the team’s biggest challenge yet with the
new GT2 car, having only run the car for a longest race distance of 2 hours
45 minutes so far this season. Both
Drayson-Barwell and Aston Martin Racing (AMR) have been working flat out to
make improvements to the Vantage, and were rewarded with a great race which
produced comfortably our most competitive performance to date. We were set
for another hard-earned 10th place in GT2, but unfortunately with
just 10 minutes left to go Paul was nerfed off the track by an LMP2 Acura and
left stranded in a gravel trap. We were still classified in the results but
just missed out on the last championship points in 11th.
Our action-packed
race kept our drivers and team on their toes, with hectic race restarts,
sideswipes from passing cars, car fires and constantly changing race
strategy. This was a great team and driver performance, and prior to the late
race incident we were set to be the top non-Ferrari/Porsche car home, ahead
of both Ford GT-Rs, the Panoz Esperante and the Dodge Viper.
For the practice
and qualifying sessions, we were using the old spec engine and
unfortunately problems with this meant that Jonny
Cocker never got the opportunity to post a qualifying time around the awesome
four-mile Road America (Elkhart Lake) track. The qualifying lap speed
of the LMP prototypes at 136mph, and the fastest GT2 at 115mph, show just
what an incredibly fast place this is even with 12 corners!
Despite the
engine problems on Friday, there was a mood of optimism in the camp as the
latest upgraded spec engine had arrived from AMR and was fitted on Friday night.
This meant yet another late night for our incredibly hard-working crew, who
finished at 3.00am on Saturday morning.
The big question
on everyones lips on race day morning was whether this dedication and hard
work would be rewarded with a competitive and reliable race showing in one of
the ALMS blue riband events. Paul was certainly enjoying the performance of
the new engine as he took the start of the
race and was hanging on to the back of the GT2 pack well. Unfortunately an
early caution period meant that the safety car split the GT2 field in half,
with the top seven cars being gifted a lap on all the rest. In an
extraordinary opening forty minutes of the race there were many subsequent
caution periods which also adversely affected our track position, but the
damage done to our race position was restricted by good strategy calls from
the Drayson-Barwell crew. These enabled us to not lose a further lap and also
make a fuel stop under the caution period, even when Paul had been stuck behind
the safety car for quite a while.
After the one
hour mark it was clear that we were locked in battle over 10th place in GT2 with the Vici Porsche, the two Ford GT-Rs and the Dodge Viper.
This battle ebbed and flowed according to the luck of the draw with the
safety car periods, the differing strategies and the fluctuating pace of the
professional and amateur drivers in each car. Paul was driving superbly, and
having been fuelled up during the caution periods he was set to do his first
ever double stint in the car. This took him through to just before the two
hour mark, where we again used a caution period to bring him in to change
over to Jonny, and for the crew to
refuel and change tyres on the car.
The fight for 10th
place in GT2 had now come down to a two-way affair between us and the Black
Swan Racing Ford GT-R, and although we were behind it at this stage we were
on a different stop strategy. Only seven laps into Jonnys
stint, however, it was reported by the race officials that a fire had been
observed on the number 007 Aston Martin Vantage GT2. The concerned pit crew
watched the TV monitors closely and saw that intermittently there was a small
flame from the drivers side lower sill, almost certainly being caused by the
rubber pick up balls trapped inside the side sills being ignited by the hot
exhaust pipes. Jonny was called
into the pits, and Mark Lemmer made the unusual – but in this case quite sensible! - request to the pit crew
to not fuel the car automatically when it stopped at the pit box; If there is
a problem with the car our normal procedure is to top up the fuel first and
then deal with the problem, comments Mark, but in this case I decided it
might be wise to make the call to the guys to go for fire first and then
fuel...!!
Our crew fireman,
along with a highly zealous pit lane marshal, blasted their extinguishers at
the offending area by the exhaust to make sure that the fire was completely
out. Then our brave crew men pulled out all the rubber balls that were lodged
in the sill area by the exhaust to make sure there would be no repeat of the
incident. Jonny then got his head
down to put together a strong series of laps in order to try and make up the
deficit to the Ford lost during the unscheduled stop, despite being heavily
sideswiped by one of the leading GT2 Ferraris as it came past! After an hour
into his stint we made use of another caution period to refuel and retyre the
car, but Jonny was only able to
get in a handful of laps before there would be another safety car period, this time set to be a lengthy one.
We took this
opportunity to bring Jonny in to
change back to Paul, who would have the last half hour with a new set of
tyres to help him try to achieve another top 3 Founders Cup score (as he
did at Mid-Ohio) – this is the competition to be the fastest privateer
drivers on average during each race. By this stage our superb strategy of
only pitting under caution periods, together with Jonnys
pace, had enabled us to leapfrog the Ford into that all-important 10th
place. This means a championship points score and for Road America the
added bonus of five points for a long race result.
With the Ford too far back to challenge, the team sat down to enjoy the last stage of what had been our strongest race to date in the ALMS. With only 10 minutes to go, however, to our dismay the TV monitors showed our lovely green Aston Martin firmly embedded in a gravel trap at the end of the final back straight. They then revealed the cause, the LMP2 class-leading Acura of former Grand Prix driver Frank Montagny had made an extremely late lunge up the inside of Paul at Canada corner as he attempted to keep the rival Acura of David Brabham behind him. The Acura sideswiped our Vantage GT2 and sent both cars spinning off into the gravel, sadly ending both of their races. This over-optimistic move from Montagny cost both parties their just rewards as we lost 10th place and six championship points as well as the chance for Paul to score another top Founders Cup finish. We were, however, still classified in the results in 11th place in GT2. NEXT RACE
ALMS Round 10
Sunday 24 August - Mosport, Canada |
