| Date/Time: | 2008-03-16 18:30 |
| Race: | Mobil One 12 Hours of Sebring |
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Sebring, FL --- Autocon launched its 2008 campaign with a good showing at the 56th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring this past weekend, qualifying 9th out of 35 cars before an obscure ruling pushed its starting position to 15th, and finishing 22nd overall and fifth in class. Race day preparations for the Saturday event began six days earlier on Monday, a day that included driver Bryan Willman laying down his fastest time ever at the 4-mile circuit. Co-driver Tony Burgess ran his first-ever prototype laps at Sebring, a track he has commandeered many times before in GT cars. Tuesday was lost to repairs resulting from a late Monday incident. On Wednesday the team began to work on qualifying and race day set up, trying to find the right mix of lowering the car to generate maximum down force, and avoiding a front-end porpoising phenomena. By Friday engineer Buddy Fey figured the team had arrived at a reasonably fast set up, and that was likely going to be proven true had qualifying lasted more than two laps. The BK Motorsports Mazda P2 entry found itself flipping (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qjddG3OC03I) through the air in turn one, and the clean up consumed the remaining 17 minutes of the 25 minute qualifying session. Autocon driver Chris McMurry turned the team’s fastest lap of the weekend on just the second flying lap, and the team figures another 2-3 seconds would have been taken off that time with warm tires in the next lap or two. Typically, the best qualifying laps come on the 4th or 5th laps when tire temperatures and pressures are optimized, and grip is at its best. As it stood Autocon had qualified 9th, but later learned that an obscure rule allowed officials to revert to practice times, as a result of the shortened qualifying session, to set the starting grid order. A number of entries had chosen to wait in pit lane rather than making an early qualifying run and never scored a qualifying time, yet ended up starting ahead of Autocon due to the ruling. So, Autocon started 15th and as is typical of the San Diego-based team, began a methodical march up the grid, reaching as high as 11th overall and 4th in class. The day was going along optimistically until hour 3-4 when a brake line failure sent Willman on a wild spin at well over 100 mph through the hairpin, but thankfully with no contact or damage to the car. Initially the team thought the brake issue was related to the master cylinder, a part that took 30 minutes to repair. It later realized the issue was with the brake line, a comparatively simple fix, and the team was back on track 15 minutes later, but dropping all the way down to 28th position at the 45 minute repair job. For the next seven hours the JEANRICHARD-sponsored Creation CAH06 battled a small oil leak and constant lap traffic as it began the long climb forward from the back of the pack. By nightfall it had reached 24th position, and ultimately 22nd position by the end of the race. “Our eyes are very much set on the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, and I think we showed well in that we were clean, consistent, the engine held up very well, and other than the break issue, we ran like we would hope to in France,” said team owner Michael Lewis. “I thought Chris did a great job and emerged as the team leader. He was driving smart, quick laps at the start and keeping touch with the prototype field. Bryan was the most improved driver out there and was turning personal bests in all his stints. Tony did what Tony always does and gave us very solid and fast laps, one after the other.“ The team will race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach next on Saturday, April 19 with Lewis and Trans-Am regular Tommy Drissi. Drissi, a Californian and long-time friend of Lewis, is quite familiar with Autocon, and tested with the team in January. After that race, which will be broadcast April 20th at 12:30pm EDT on ABC, the team packs its bags for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in June. For Picture from Sebring |
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