2003 SEASON :::
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Talk about a bad week-end. What a shame things went the way that they did, as the guys at Pratt and Miller totally gave us two great race cars. By far our Corvettes were the quickest in GTS, and the Ferraris only got the pole by running soft tires as IMSA had decided due to the weather to leave tires open for qualifying.

Things started out real bad when Kelly had a big shunt, and the car was bad enough that it could not be repaired in time for the race. I know how badly that he and Ollie felt…little did I know that we also were going to have bad luck of our own.

The race started well, and Ron fell in behind the Ferrari’s, and as his stint went on was looking quite good and strong. I think that the Prodrive strategy was to just have the second place car run just a touch slower to keep Ron behind them…allowing the lead car to pull away. It worked, and Ron was pretty much stuck running in third as passing at that circuit is quite difficult.

One thing that was great to see was that Ron’s shoulder was not bothering him. I kind of figured that would be the case…its funny how when you get in the car adrenaline takes over, but anyway he was running quite strong and I know that makes him feel good about going to Petit, as we are both going to have to really attack there.

Anyway, back to the race. Ron stopped at just about 50 minutes and I got in. With the stop I got the lead, and it was quite easy to maintain a lead over the Ferrari’s. Depending on traffic it would be around 6 to 10 seconds, and I was not having to push that hard which was nice. I was feeling very comfortable in the car…no problems with heat, and the handling was just where we wanted it…really good.

There was a caution with about and hour to go in the race, and we pitted which dropped me back to second. The Ferrari had not taken on tires though, and I figured that towards the end of the race we would have them covered pretty well. Just bide your time I figured.

At the restart I was quite a bit behind Brabham, but after several laps ran him down, and it looked like it was going to be a lot of fun both of us running together. But alas this was not to be. We came up on the Banana Joe MG, which thought normally a very strong 675 car, was having problems. He let Brabham go, and I followed him for a bit, waiting for him to give me the opportunity to get by. Now so that you know, they accelerate a whole lot harder than us, and can brake much deeper…well also they can go through the corner faster.

Anyway, having been behind him for a bit, I knew where he was braking, and really how he was driving. Going into turn two, he backed out early, which I took as a sign that he was finally letting me go. I ran hard into the corner, and damn if he didn’t come down hard on me. I hit the brakes to keep from slamming him ( which in hindsight is what I should have done ) and the contact got me sideways and the left front hit the wall….hard. I limped it back to the pits…it was all I could do just the drive the car straight, and the boys went to work.

They got to what they thought would be good enough to just run around and get points, and I went back out on circuit. Probably the hardest car I’ve ever had to drive. Literally it took all of my strength just to keep it going straight. I was told not to hit the brakes hard, as it might make the corner collapse, and then on top of that I had to try and stay out of everyones way. Finally, it did fail, and I brought it back into the pits. They again went to work on it, and when I went back out, the car was driving straight…the steering wheel was straight…I thought hey…great job. But as I was leaving the pits, they told me don’t hit the brakes, go slow…be totally careful. So for the last several laps, it was totally no brake…just using the engine to slow down. Very very difficult. Once the checkered flag was out, they told me that they had used a ratchet strap that had been holding our tent in the pits down, to hold the suspension together !!!! Talk about McGyver !!

Well needless to say I was quite pissed off at the end of the race. When out there, you have to work with your competitors. There quite honestly is nothing more frustrating then when a car in 675 or 900 is running slower than you, but they won’t let you by. They slow you down in the corner, then use their superior horsepower and braking to keep you back. And when you figure into it that they aren’t even racing you…you wonder what the hell are they thinking. It’s just a damn shame we don’t have missiles loaded into the front end of that Corvette. I’m sure we would have used them all up in Miami.

So we go into Petit with quite a challenge. We without a doubt gave Ferrari a gift this past week-end, and come Road Atlanta I guarantee you Ron, Frank and I will be ready to get Corvette back on the top step of the podium.

Johnny O
09/30/03

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