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Written by:
Kevin Krefting
02/28/2007 - 07:00 PM
Charlotte, NC
Adrian Fernandez in the Acura during Sebring pre-season testing (Photo: Acura) ยป More Photos
With its new American Le Mans Series race program, Acura is soon to arrive on a stage occupied by some of the world's most prestigious auto companies. With three new teams, Acura is starting on the learning curve to its ultimate goal: to race and win in the American Le Mans series, starting with its premier event, the legendary test of speed and endurance that is the 12 Hours of Sebring.
This is a one-hour documentary program that will put the television viewer behind the wheel of the Acura-powered LMP2 race car, and behind the scenes of Acura-powered race teams Andretti/Green, Fernandez Racing and Highcroft Racing as each team prepares for the first phase of competition in the LMP2 Class, the 2007 Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring in mid-March 2007.
It's the dramatic story of the 'Race to the Race', told in a countdown format.
While the engine that will power the Acura LMP2 cars has been in development from several years, the actual program development has been on a fast track. The process of team selection, driver selection and logistical planning has been in overdrive since the announcement of Acura's entry in ALMS at the New York Auto Show in April 2006. While racing programs of this magnitude typically are planned years in advance, Acura is pushing to field a competitive program within an incredibly tight timeframe.
The reason for such intense pressure is two-fold: The incredibly competitive luxury car marketing in which the Acura competes demands Acura hone its image for world-class performance on a world-class stage. The primary competition here is Acura itself, seeking to use racing as a means to achieve its brand promise: Advance. An added element is the presence on the LMP2 grid of Porsche. Its return in late 2005 to prototype racing brought renewed focus to the American Le Mans Series, and it will be represented in 2007 by two of the most respected team in motorsports: Penske Racing and Dyson Racing.
Penske and Porsche are near-mythical names in sports car racing, joined forever in the legendary Porsche 917 sports of the early 1970s. And throughout much of the past four decades, Porsche has been the yardstick by which all other car makers have measured themselves, their engineering, and their technology.
Acura firmly believes that competition improves the breed. Rising to the competitive challenge of the LMP2 Porsches can only help Acura is its desire to advance its engineering, its technology, and its reputation.
Acura's process of selecting the three race teams reveals the complexities found at the intersection of motorsports and marketing. What could each team contribute? How would those contributions complement each other so the total effort achieved Acura's far-reaching corporate objectives? It's a revealing look at how far a factory-backed racing program is expected to extend beyond the race track.
The two teams with existing ties to the company had the depth experience and engineering resources that would help shorten the learning curve. The third team, Highcroft, was another story altogether. Comprised of experienced sports car racers and also 1985 Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan, Highcroft is a young team to see what it can achieve under the guidance of Acura racing's braintrust.
All three will face the unique issues of prototype sports car racing, which poses challenges not encountered in open-wheel racing.
The behind the scenes look at the 'Race to the Race' will reveal many of these issues, including the selection of the drivers, who are teamed with one and sometimes two other drivers in the endurance racing format. Logistics is also a formidable challenge for the teams, as they must plan for scenarios that could involve major repairs to keep the cars on track over the course of 12 hours, in the case of Sebring.
The Acura documentary will go inside the workings
Technically, the common element is the Acura powerplant. During the show, viewers will get a behind the scenes look at HPD, Acura's racing arm and the producer of the engines used by all three teams. How will HPD's extensive history of building winning race engines for open-wheel series translate to the American Le Mans Series? Viewers will hear from Robert Clark, the long-time chief of HPD, and get a sense of how the advanced technology it uses continues to stretch the limits of performance and reliability.
We will see engines being built by HPD and tested on the dyno, then shipped to the teams. We'll see what happens to the engines that have been shipped back by the teams after testing, witnessing their total tear down, as each part is forensically examined as if this were an episode of CSI:Valencia.
We'll try to capture tense discussions between HPD engineers and the teams, about the kind of data they're seeing, kind of power they're trying to achieve, the suspension characteristics they're trying to fine tune. In the background of these discussions will loom the intense pressure of the competition-from the other Acura teams as well as other LMP2 programs.
The other technical challenge common to all three teams is the chassis. With so little time before Sebring, chassis building took place at Lola in England and Courage in France, then the chassis were shipped to the teams located in Indianapolis and Connecticut. The compressed timeframe means the chassis and suspension testing programs of each team take on added pressure.
There's no margin for error: a heavy crash in testing would be a serious set-back for any of the teams. Yet they must push the cars hard in testing to ensure the engineers gather all the data they possibly can.
That pressure is felt most acutely by the drivers. These aren't pampered NASCAR superstars, who can wad up a car and walk away knowing the team as a dozen more back at the shop. These are endurance sports car racers, hired for their uncanny ability to be both fast and careful, not just for a few laps but ultimately over the course of double-stints last 2 to 3 hours. All on a track mixed with racecars of widely varying performance capabilities.
We'll get to know each team's driver line-up. It's a incredible collection of personalities, cultures and backgrounds, and we'll get to see intensity and passion that each brings to their team. We'll get to ride along in-car with them on test laps, and then hear how they download the engineers after a test session.
We'll get a sense of what makes sports car drivers a breed apart: the ability not just to drive, but to articulate precisely what the car is doing so the engineers can get the suspension set up just right-an especially tough task given Sebring's notoriously rough, fast mix of concrete and asphalt surfaces.
Our cameras and microphones will be in the pits and garages, overhearing the crackle of radio communications between drivers and crew chiefs, and of driver impressions back at the paddock. As the countdown progresses, viewers will get a sense of the progress made during all three pre-race on-track test sessions, in December, January and finally in late February, just weeks prior to Sebring and the start of the 2007 ALMS campaign. Viewers will feel the intensity of emotion as each team pushes itself to find more speed in its quest to fend off Porsche and the other teams for the LMP2 championship.
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