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| 2008 Lime Rock Team Race Report: Stevenson Pontiac |
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Photo by Andrew Hartwell
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Stevenson Pontiac Stutters And Then Storms To A Podium At Lime Rock
The Memorial Day weekend started off very well for the #57 Stevenson Motorsports - BryanMark Financial Pontiac GXP-R, running in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16, at beautiful Lime Rock Park in northwestern Connecticut. The team transporter arrived on Thursday, after a 3,000 mile trip across country from Laguna Seca, scene of the last race just one week earlier. Once they arrived at this soon to be remodeled facility (a vast amount of paving and related construction activity will find the park closed for the next six weeks) the crew immediately set about repairing the suspension damage incurred at Laguna.
With the red, white and blue Pontiac restored to race-ready condition, Andrew Davis went out and qualified second on the grid, putting him on the outside pole for the start of the Grand-Am Classic GT 250. As the field completed the pace lap and came down the hill and onto the front straight, the green flag waved and suddenly 18 engines were roaring their loudest as the pack headed for the starting line&with one exception.
A plug wire had come loose on the Stevenson mount which put Davis down on power so much so that he immediately fell back from second to eighth as the field entered the first turn. As the lap progressed on the bumpy 1.53 mile circuit, Davis found he simply could not keep up with anyone because of a misfire in the engine, and he began dropping back quickly until he was in secure possession of last place.
As the race progressed, Davis went down a lap to the leaders. Team Manager Mike Johnson outlined what happened and why the team decided to leave Davis out on the track.
Andrew went down one lap on track and was running very good lap times (.55 seconds) with only seven cylinders, so we decided to leave him out until the mandatory 30 minutes at which point we lost another lap in the pits. When the other cars came in for their mandatory first stop in the first 45 minutes we went back to one lap down and only had one stop left, like everyone else. We stayed one lap down from the #07, #06 and #70 all race, but were able to catch everyone else.
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