Last weekend's race at Lime Rock was full off-track excursions and on-track incidents. For those of you who don't know, I race with Next Generation Motorsports in the KONI Sports Car Challenge, and last weekend we were at Lime Rock Park, CT. Lime Rock is gorgeous. It was also built over five decades ago, so it's short and challenging.
Team Next Gen worked really hard to get our BMW 330 ready. But, as is often the case with race cars, there were some challenges: we had some suspension and electrical issues. It wasn't really anything major, but the car had a lot of push mid-corner under throttle. Every practice session (there are three) had a challenge to it. The suspension did not feel right; I melted a coil. We spend practice day fine-tuning and the team did great work to figure out what was causing the problems. After that, the car felt very strong.
The day before the race, once the car was ready to go, we applied our sponsor stickers, including my OGRacing stickers. This was the final step -- we were ready to race!
My co-driver for this race was Bob Newman. Bob was scheduled to driver the 128 BMW first (the faster. more experienced driver usually goes 2nd in the KONI Challenge). Bob was not too comfortable with the car, and qualified the car 23rd of 23 entrants. Part of the challenge of KONI is sharing the car, and dealing with the cards your driver deals you. I was very happy with the car and excited about the BMW’s performance. I love challenge and was looking forward to the good bit of work ahead of me.
Once the race started, Bob came in after 45 minutes for a driver change (KONI races are 2:30 hrs long, and teams generally have each driver complete 1:15 hrs of driving before trading drivers; however, this can vary based on strategy). After hopping in, I focused on working steadily to make up positions. By the time I hopped in the car, there had already been two cautions, and drivers kept dropping wheels and making contact. I just focused on running a clean, incident-free race.
When I got in the 128 car, we were in 20th place and 10 laps down. I worked my way up to P18. My best lap was 1:01.032. Considering the circumstances, I was pretty happy with the outcome!
Here's another bit of race wisdom: there is no wasted race. My time on track at Lime Rock was instrumental for me to get familiar with my new car, and to prepare for the Glen in two weeks.
I'm really looking forward to the Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge race at Watkins Glen on June 4-5! I hope you can join me there. In the meantime, check out my web page (danielorrracing.com) or visit my Facebook Page, "Daniel Orr Racing"
See you at the races!
