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| Lime Rock Race Notes: Corvette Racing |
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Holiday traffic was heavy today at Lime Rock Park in the fourth round of the American Le Mans Series, with hard contact and close calls the order of the day in the New England Grand Prix. Corvette Racing's bid for a record 13th consecutive victory in the GT1 class came up just short in a photo finish between the No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R and the No. 009 Aston Martin DBR9. Aston Martin driver Pedro Lamy edged Corvette star Johnny O'Connell by .033-second at the stripe. It was the first race since March 2005 that Corvette Racing had to settle for the second spot on the podium.
"He had me by two feet, but with another lap or two we might have got him," said O'Connell. "The guys on the No. 3 Corvette crew have been working so hard and I really wanted to get them a win. This is a very busy race track, but it was a fun battle and we raced each other clean."
"It was crazy out there - as crazy as I've ever seen it," said O'Connell's teammate Ron Fellows, who drove the first one-hour, 41-minute stint. "That's typical of Lime Rock. I was a tick quicker than the Aston in a couple of areas, but not quick enough to take a shot at him."
The two-hour, 45-minute race on the roller coaster 1.54-mile circuit was punctuated by frequent contact and three full-course caution periods. The first incident was the result of Dyson Racing's LMP1 prototype making an optimistic passing attempt in Turn 3 on Olivier Beretta in the No. 4 Compuware Corvette C6.R. The prototype pushed the Corvette off the track, and both cars ended up in the guardrail, mired in mud.
"The car was flying and I was pushing hard to catch the leaders," Beretta reported. "I was trying to do my job and an accident happened. I turned into the corner and straight away I felt a car there. He touched me and I went off on the grass. My main concern was the steering. The crew did a terrific job as usual to get the car back on the track."
It took eight minutes for the track workers to extricate the wounded Corvette from the muck, and 17 minutes later the C6.R was back on the track with a new front end and Oliver Gavin behind the wheel.
"The crew had to change the nose, change the engine undertray, and replace a broken tie rod end," reported team manager Gary Pratt. "We cleaned off the mud, changed the tires, and the car was back going again."
That accident ended the bid of Beretta and Gavin to extend their record-setting winning streak to nine consecutive victories.
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