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| Archer Goes Flag-To-Flag For SPEED GT Win At Road America |
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Tommy Archer leads the entire pack into Road Americas turn five on the opening lap of Sundays SPEED GT race - Mark Weber-SCCA Photo
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ELKHART LAKE, Wis., (Aug. 20, 2006) Tommy Archer, of Duluth, Minn., captured his first SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship win of 2006 in a race that shuffled the season points at the Road America Generac 500 weekend. Lawson Aschenbach, of Gaithersburg, Md., and Leighton Reese, of Minnetonka, Minn., completed the top three.
Starting from his second pole of the season in the No. 5 c3controls/Dodge Motorsports Dodge Viper, Archer got the holeshot off the standing start and was never seriously challenged for the lead en route to his sixth career victory, and first since St. Petersburg in 2005. Archer beat Aschenbach to the checkered flag by 1.028 seconds, averaging 90.399 mph in a race that was slowed by one caution.
"Autohaus Motorsports picked me up six weeks before the season started and this is only my fourth race with the two guys that work on my car," Archer said. "It was rewarding this weekend because we came here expecting to be somewhat competitive and we've surprised even ourselves in qualifying. The car just worked good and we made some adjustments last night. The crew is now starting to understand what I need and that little adjustments mean big things, even though it's a big car. We just keep working hard at it and I talked to them during the race and I told them after the race a couple more things we've gotta do to keep making ourselves better. I think for the team, it's a pretty big high.
"It feels good to be here and win close to home. I have family here. I think this is the first race in fifteen or sixteen years that my mother has been to a race."
For the fifth time in seven races, the Drivers' Championship shifted at the top, and Aschenbach is back into the lead for the third time. After starting alongside Archer in his No. 66 AXA Financial Porsche 911 GT3, the 22-year old Piloti Rookie of the Year candidate followed the red Viper for the entire race, but never had enough to make a bid for the lead.
"It was a good run," Aschenbach said. "I had a bit of a wheel-spin problem on the start, so it put me behind. I thought I might be able to jump ahead of Tommy [Archer] on the start, but it just wasn't going to happen. I settled in behind him, and I knew the both of us were going to push pretty hard at the beginning and save our tires toward the middle of the race and go again at the end. We just didn't have anything for him [Archer]. The places that I was quicker weren't quite the places I needed to be quicker, but we'll take the finish, we'll take the point lead and we'll go to the next few races and see if we can keep it up there.
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