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| Sahlen Six Hours of the Glen Preview: Pontiac |
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In the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports camp Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis have accounted for two of the Pontiac's five wins. There victories came at Mexico City and again at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). The pair has also stood on the podium at Lime Rock.
I think that you could look at the results from the last five or six races and draw a number of different conclusions, Liddell said. At a purely cursory glance, Pontiac has won five of the first six events so you could be forgiven for thinking that they have dominated. On closer inspection this has been achieved through a combination of performance, reliability, strategy, driver skill, consistency and good luck, even when the lap times achieved by the Pontiac were not the quickest. At the end of the day the Pontiac GXP.R as built by GM Racing and Pratt & Miller is fundamentally the best racecar in the field and so in one respect it is always going to be penalized in order that the other cars can compete. The challenge for Grand-Am is not overdoing that process so that they handicap a good team package and hand an unfair advantage to a lesser team package. The penalties will clearly slow the car down, of that there is no doubt. How much they slow it down and how it affects the balance and handling of the car remains to be seen. From my point of view I will be as committed as ever and working hard with both Stevenson Motorsports and Pontiac to ensure that we are as competitive as we possibly can be in the upcoming races.
In the No. 72 Autohaus Motorsports Pontiac the high point of the team's season came at Lime Rock Park a week ago when Tim Lewis Jr. put the GXP.R on the pole. Together with Lawson Aschenbach the team is on the cusp of having a break through weekend.
I think the weight will hurt us the worse, Lewis said. It will make us even slower down the straights than we already were. Grand-Am is trying to equalize the field, I am not sure if this is the right way. This will not help in our overtaking opportunities. Watkins Glen is a long race, good strategy and pit stops will keep us in the top five. A top five would probably feel like a win after these adjustments. At Lime Rock we ended up having a rod end on the rear sway bar break, which affected our tire wear. That was just some more tough luck for us. We are stuck in fourth and fifth place finishes. Other than that we had a podium car. I really like The Glen, it is similar to Laguna in the way you approach a driving style. I hope to be quick there, but with our weight and balance issues it may be too much to overcome for a win.
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