Tommy Archer, of Duluth, Minn., was fastest Friday afternoon at Watkins Glen International and wound up fastest on the day in preparation for Sunday’s SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship Round Four race, part of the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen weekend. Andy Pilgrim, of Boca Raton, Fla., and Eric Curran, of East Hampton, Mass., completed the top three.Driving the No. 13 Foametix/Woodhouse Performance Dodge Viper, Archer recovered from a blown engine in Thursday’s test session to turn the day’s fastest lap of 1:55.695 (105.587 mph). In Friday morning’s session, Archer was at the other end of the time sheets in 22nd as the team continued to work out electrical issues with the new engine.”In the first session we had an electrical glitch that was causing the engine to go into safe mode, so it just wouldn’t go anywhere,” Archer said. “The Woodhouse crew worked hard all day, literally until an hour before the session, so they worked six hours to figure out what the problem was in this hot weather and give me a car that worked. My job is easy — I just drive it, but they did a heck of a job all day.”It feels good to have a car that’s close to the front now. We can’t race that fast though. We tried a setup that was for qualifying and there’s no way I can go that fast through the whole race, because after three laps I was sliding the tires. “To be able to take a car through the Esses flat is very difficult, so that’s what I work on when I come here. It’s a fight with your foot every time you get to Turn Two, because your brain says lift, but you tell yourself 20no, I can’t lift!’ But if you can get through there, it’s bad fast. I bet I come off the bridge five to 10 miles an hour quicker than most guys just because I can get up through there quick, so that’s what I always work on.”Pilgrim, who was fastest in the morning session, dropped another half second off his best time with a lap of 1:55.923 (105.587 mph) in the No. 8 Remington Shaving/Cadillac Cadillac CTS-V.Curran’s 1:56.848 (104.751 mph) came in the morning session. In the afternoon session, he was sixth fastest in the No. 30 Whelen Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette and had a brush with the guard rail in Turn Six. He continued on in the session.Point leader Brandon Davis was fourth fastest in the No. 10 ACS/Sun Microsystems Ford Mustang with a time of 1:57.138 (104.692 mph) in the morning. Michael Galati completed the top five in his No. 23 K-PAX Racing Porsche 911 GT3 with a fastest time of 1:57.138 (104.492 mph) in the afternoon session.Defending race winner Randy Pobst (Porsche 911 GT3), James Sofronas (Porsche 911 GT3), Michael McCann (Cadillac CTS-V), Joey Scarallo (Pontiac GTO) and Dino Crescentini (Porsche 911 GT3) completed the top 10 on the day.Qualifying for Sunday morning’s race is scheduled for Saturday at 9:55 a.m. (EDT). Live timing and session notes are available via http://www.world-challenge.com through the SCCA Pit Board.
For half of the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge Championships, the season has reached the halfway point at Watkins Glen International, for the other half, the season is just beginning. The SCCA SPEED GT season is still in its adolescence, embarking on Round Four this weekend at Watkins Glen. Backing up his Long Beach win with a runner-up finish at Miller Motorsports Park, 22 year-old Brandon Davis arrives in upstate New York as the SCCA SPEED GT Drivers’ Championship point leader. The recent University of Denver grad is missing commencement ceremonies to race this weekend in the No. 10 ACS/Sun Microsystems Ford Mustang, but it will be worth it if he can extend his lead in the Championship as well as Ford’s lead in the SCCA SPEED GT Manufacturers’ Championship presented by RACER Magazine.A mere five points behind Davis in the standings is defending Champion Randy Pobst, who made history at The Glen last year, sweeping the GT and both Touring Car races for a record three professional race wins in a single weekend. It marked a turning point in the No. 1 K-PAX Racing Porsche 911 GT3 driver’s 2007 Championship season, so needless to say, he is looking forward to this weekend.Despite a rough race at the Glen last year, Pobst’s teammate Michael Galati is also a front-runner for a victory on Sunday. In 2007, Galati had a poor start from ninth on the grid and fell well back in the field before battling back to a fifth-place finish. Imagine the possibilities if he were to qualify on the front row in the No. 23 K-PAX Racing Porsche 911 GT3.The only SCCA SPEED GT driver to stand on the podium at each race thus far is Andy Pilgrim. Polesitter at The Glen last year, Pilgrim also had a poor start to the race, but whereas Galati stalled, Pilgrim jumped, and was forced to serve a stop-and-go penalty. Not what you would expect from “Mr. Consistency.” Pilgrim sliced through the field for a fourth-place finish, so like Galati, a high grid position for the No. 8 Remington Shaving Cadillac CTS-V and good start could be the right recipe for a breakaway win. Better still, a Cadillac win would advance the marque in the Manufacturers’ standings.Both in their sophomore SCCA SPEED GT seasons, Jeff Courtney and Jason Daskalos currently head the list of Viper pilots in the drivers’ standings. Courtney is fresh of an SCCA SPEED GT personal best of sixth at Miller Motorsports Park in the No. 99 Kenda/TJM/MPI Coin/Badger Tire Dodge Viper, while Daskalos has yet to finish any lower than eighth so far this season in the No. 5 Coyote Gravel Products Dodge Viper.Of course, it was a Dodge Viper that won the most recent round in Utah. Driving the No. 13 Foametix/Woodhouse Performance Dodge Viper, Tommy Archer returned to the series for his second race of the season to capture the first SCCA SPEED GT win for Woodhouse Performance. Sharing driving duties with Claudio Burtin this year, Archer will return to the cockpit for Watkins Glen, where he finished sixth last year.Eric Curran led the first 10 laps at Watkins Glen last year before the engine in his No. 30 Whelen Engineering Corvette began to misfire and forced him to retire. Curran isn’t having much better luck so far this season, but as we saw last year, it’s either all or nothing with Curran who scored four wins in 2007 amongst five DNFs. As this is only Round Four, there’s still time for Curran to turn his season around and get Chevrolet into the Manufacturers’ Title battle.It’s time to get down to business in SCCA SPEED Touring Car, which starts the second half of the 2008 season this weekend with Round Six. The Tri-Point and Tindol Mazda teams will need to put their noses to the grindstone in order to catch the RealTime Acura squad, whose drivers currently occupy the top three spots in the Drivers’ Championship.Finishing off the podium for the first time this season in Round Five at Lime Rock Park, Kuno Wittmer arrives at Watkins Glen with a six-point lead over Pierre Kleinubing. The Canadian has already claimed two wins in what appears to be his breakout season. Wittmer’s last visit to Watkins Glen began with a disappointing DNF due to a broken axle, but ended on a high-note following a fourth-place finish in the second part of the doubleheader.Kleinubing’s 2007 Watkins Glen doubleheader was also a mixed bag, starting off with a runner-up finish in race one, but ending race two in the Turn 11 tire wall after a run in with Jeff Altenburg. Save for an uncharacteristic off-course excursion in the No. 43 Acura/RealTime/Eibach/Red Line Acura TSX at VIRginia International Raceway, Kleinubing’s season has been flawless thus far.Team owner Peter Cunningham in the No. 42 Acura/RealTime/Eibach/Red Line Acura TSX takes up the third spot in the Drivers’ Championship, but is even happier to see Acura 11 points ahead of Mazda in the Manufacturers’ Championship.After a rocky start to the season, Chip Herr is settling into his new ride at Tindol Motorsports. Herr collected a third-place finish and a win at the Lime Rock Park in the No. 97 Mazdaspeed/Tindol MAZDA6, propelling him to fourth in the Drivers’ Championship. After trading switching from the all-wheel drive Audi A4 to the MAZDA6 in the offseason, Herr will have a whole view of the undulating Watkins Glen course this year in front-wheel drive.The only other Mazda driver to get the best of the RealTime Acuras this year is rookie Jason Saini who claimed his first-career pole and win at Miller Motorsports Park in the No. 74 Mazdaspeed/Stoptech/Racinghart MAZDA6. He had a difficult time capitalizing on that momentum at Lime Rock Park however, finishing sixth and 13th, and ending the weekend seventh in the point standings. With no previous experience at Watkins Glen, Saini will be looking to teammate Charles Espenlaub for advice. The No. 73 Mazdaspeed/Stoptech/Racinghart MAZDA6 driver had his best results of 2007 here, finishing third in race one and fifth in race two.Putting in steady results, but sill hunting for that elusive win, Seth Thomas is the highest BMW pilot in the point standings. Thomas finished a career-high second at VIR, but was unable to reach the podium in the three following races. Although Thomas qualified the No. 38 BimmerWorld BMW 325i in the top 10 for both Watkins Glen races last year, the results were disappointing to say the least (22nd and 18th).After Friday’s practice sessions, qualifying for Round Four of the SCCA SPEED GT Championship and Round Six of the SCCA SPEED Touring Car Championship is scheduled for Saturday morning. The SCCA SPEED Touring Car race will go green at 8:35 a.m. (EDT) on Sunday, followed shortly thereafter by the SCCA SPEED GT race at 10:50 a.m. (EDT). Live timing and scoring for all sessions is available at http://www.world-challenge.com. Both races will air on SPEED, Wednesday, June 18, at noon and 1:00 p.m. (EDT).
Chip Herr, of Lititz, Pa., was quickest in the second practice session for Round Six of the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge Championship, but couldn’t top the morning time of Pierre Kleinubing, of Coconut Creek, Fla., who was fastest on the day at Watkins Glen International.With temperatures surpassing the 90 degree mark in this afternoon’s SCCA SPEED Touring Car practice session, Herr’s No. 97 Mazdapseed/Tindol Motorsports MAZDA6 was unable to top Kleinubing’s morning time of 2:06.497 (96.761 mph).Despite being the fastest car of the day, the No. 42 Acura/RealTime/Eibach/Red Line Acura TSX driver still had some trepidations about the pace of the Acura versus the Mazda at Watkins Glen.”Last year I thought we were going to do really well here, but we got smoked,” Kleinubing said. “Nothing’s changed really and I don’t know what the Mazda guys are doing, but if they do what they did last year I don’t think we have a chance.”So far so good though. The car could be better, but we’ll be working hard on it.”I like Watkins Glen a lot,” Kleinubing added. “It’s got lots of fast corners and sweeping corners, which I like a lot. Especially in these cars, it’s pretty fun. They can get pretty edgy in a loose situation, which is the way I like it to drive.”Kleinubing was followed by his teammate, Peter Cunningham, of Milwaukee, Wis., in the combined practice times. Cunningham turned a 2:06.745 (96.249 mph) behind the wheel of the No. 42 Acura/RealTime/Eibach/Red Line Acura TSX in the morning session.Herr’s lap of 2:07.483 (96.012 mph) was the fastest of the afternoon, but was slower than the Lime Rock Park winner’s morning time of 2:07.170 (96.249 mph) which put him third on the combined practice time sheet.”The car’s been really good,” Herr said. “We’ve changed over from Moton shocks to Ohlins shocks. [Michael] Galati, myself and [Charlie] Putman have been working with the technicians to get the setup perfect. We’ve run it in cool temperatures and now we’ve run it in extremely hot temperatures. We made a change and I went eight-tenths of a second quicker, so we’re making really good progress with the Ohlins suspension so far.”When I ran here last year with the Audi we didn’t have the top end horsepower, but the Mazdas seem to have a good balance. They seem to be right where the Acuras are. I struggled with the Audi last year, but this track seems to compliment the Mazdas as Randy Pobst showed last year (winning both SPEED Touring Car races). “Tindol is trying to give me the best car they can this weekend to get the back-to-back win. I hope my teammate Galati and I can qualify together, because you need drafting to put a good lap together.”Michael Galati, of Olmstead, Ohio, was fourth fastest in both the afternoon practice and in combined practice times. Driving the No. 95 Mazda North America/Tindol Motorsports MAZDA6, Galati turned his fastest time of 2:07.173 (96.246 mph) in the morning session.Rookie Jason Saini, of Fort Worth, Texas, also turned his fastest lap in the morning session. A lap of 2:07.310 (96.143 mph) put Saini’s No. 74 Mazdaspeed/Stoptech/Racinghart MAZDA6 fifth fastest on the day.James Clay (BMW 325i), Kuno Wittmer (Acura TSX), Seth Thomas (BMW 325i), Dino Crescentini (Acura TSX) and Jim Daniels (MAZDA6) completed the top ten in combined practice times.Qualifying for Round Six of the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED Touring Car Championship is set for 8:00 a.m. (EDT) on Saturday, June 7. The 50-minute race will launch from a standing start at 8:35 a.m. (EDT) on Sunday, June 8. Live timing and lap notes are available at http://www.world-challenge.com.