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| Automatic Racing Getting Ready to Defend their Koni Challenge Championships in -08 |
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I started getting confident in the 91 car after a few laps and was able to push it harder over the course of my session. The car would slide around quite a bit in the combination of turns that make up turns 3-4-5 on the full circuit, but it was predictable and easily corrected. A top speed of around 130mph was reached on the long and fast Gurney Bend, and the M3 was really impressive going through the Fangio Chicane and Collier Curve sections, which have the types of fast turns where the M3 had a competitive advantage over the Porsche and Mustang GT in the '07 season.
I was pretty happy with the lap times I was setting compared to the pros that were there, but found out where I was losing time after riding for several laps with Jep Thornton, who won the '07 GS class driver championship with Jeff Segal. Jep was doing things with the car that only come with intimate familiarity, sliding the M3 more through the turns and going into the turns much deeper before braking, then hammering on them before getting quickly back onto the throttle. Braking was the hardest part for me to get used to - I was hitting a top speed only 1mph off that of the Automatic drivers on Gurney Bend, but was hitting the Brakes much sooner and not as hard for the hairpin.
I got into the # 99 car later in the afternoon after the team had completed most of the testing and while it still felt very similar to the # 91 car, it also had a bit of its own character, with handling that seemed more composed at the limits. My time in this car was short, as I felt a vibration at high speed that led me to bring the car into the pits. Russell took it back out and didn't feel the same thing, so said I may have picked up some debris on the tires when moving off-line to let one of the pros by. I also did some laps in the # 09 car before the end of the day. Joe Varde warned me that it was a little loose and he was right; as I started getting oversteer in some of the turns right in the first few laps, so this car required real attention.
Automatic Racing has had a busy off-season, as they're also preparing and testing the BMW M6 (really a tube-framed Riley chassis with an M6 body and a V8 motor from BMW's last generation M5) they'll be racing in the Rolex GT class in the '08 season, in addition to the Koni Challenge M3 program. Both the Rolex Sports Car Series and Koni Challenge open their 2008 seasons at Daytona in late January, but the Koni Challenge series doesn't start in earnest until late May, when the series will visit four classic road courses in a row, at Lime Rock Park, Mosport, Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen. The M3's will be facing more competition than ever and Automatic will have their hands full, but even with all the challenges, this team knows what it takes to win a championship and is confident for the 2008 season.
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