2003 SEASON ::: MORE RACING NEWS Road Atlanta Race Report A few years back, when I was driving for Panoz, I had a chat with a Derrick Walker. He was at Petit Le Mans, and could not get over how crazy the racing was. As I recall, his statement was that here we were in the prototypes going almost as fast as Indy cars, and doing it while out on the track with cars going so much slower. For sure it makes for a lot of excitement for the fans, but sometimes things can go wrong, which is what took us out of the running this past race. Ron had started the car, and had a great run going. Kelly in the 4 car was also running hard, and was able to get by Ron, but then they both ran real close to each other. After the pit stops, I came out just in front of Ollie, but being on sticker tires could not hold him off. So running in second, with a lot of time to run, I was not so concerned. On about the 4th lap, while passing a lot of slower traffic under the bridge after turn 10b, I was hit in the left rear while going by a Porsche. The tire immediately went flat, and it was a long long long way back to the pits…going very slowly, and still ripping up the body work. You absolutely have no idea how completely pissed off I was. Anyway, the boys put on some new tires, and we went back out. We lost an incredible amount of time, and had fallen from 2nd to 5th…way back. From that point on it was push as hard as you could, and hope that you could get some spots back. The first call I had was that I was over 40 seconds down to the Olive Garden car, and it took a long time to run him down. Then it was the second Prodrive car, and I finally caught up to it just as I had to stop for tires fuel and a driver change. It was a hard drive, and the whole time…I was completely angry. Anyway, Ron got in, and with the stops, he had to run down the second Ferrari from about 15 seconds back. With about 8 minutes to go, he got by and we ended up finishing third. Both of us disappointed. Still, Kelly and Ollie had a great run with no problems, and it was important that one of us get the win as it was the 50th anniversary for the Corvette, and parties were going on all over the country, one huge one of course in Bowling Green, and I know that they loved the result. Also, we had to show that we still have a lot of fight in us, and are not going to roll over for the Ferraris. So a bad week-end for the 3 car, but a good week-end still for the Corvette team. I know that the next three weeks for me are going to be very intense, reliving the anger I had at getting that puncture. Sear Point is next. Both Ron and I love it…We will have the new cars back from Le Mans…and trust me we are going to be pushing really hard… Johnny O 7/02/03 MORE REPORTS...   Site contents © 2002 Johnny O'Connell GM, GM Emblem, Corvette and the Corvette Emblem are registered trademarks of General Motors Corporation and used with permission.