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American LeMans
ALMS: McNish Monday Petit Le Mans Blog
In his second exclusive Petit Le Mans blog entry, McNish discusses his late Sunday drive at Road Atlanta, and Monday’s rather low-key day at and away from the track.
Allan McNish  | allanmcnish.com  |  Posted September 21, 2009   Braselton, GA
After a de-brief at the track, Allan McNish took the rest of the day off, relaxing for the build up to race week. (LAT)
In his second exclusive Petit Le Mans blog entry, McNish discusses his late Sunday drive at Road Atlanta, and Monday’s rather low-key day at and away from the track.

I got a bit of a surprise late on Sunday when my Audi Sport team called me up to drive late in the session. The reason was that they got to a point with the setup where it was kind of getting in the ballpark. Dindo was reasonably confident of it after going down a particular route. They gave me a little run just before the end so that I could at least feel where the car got to, and also to confirm small things like the pedal adjustments that we made. Well, I got as far as turn six before it started raining, so I came right back in...

Dindo and I also have a new seat because the base seat was previously Tom’s. This was a new base seat for Dindo with my inserts. It was good to confirm all those things so that once we get into the week in full intensity, where there’s very limited time for any change, then all of those administrative things are out of the way.

Speaking of Tom, he’s been proving to still be quite a quick driver over in DTM. He stuck it on pole a few times and was on the front row last weekend. He’s out of the championship contention, which is unfortunate, because it happened quite early in the year. But I think he now realizes the bigger picture and plays a little bit of a support role when it comes to strategy.

He still finished a strong second at Barcelona on Sunday. It’s nice for us as well to see the results come through that Audi was very strong and dominant against Mercedes. But we’re certainly looking forward to getting him more involved in the sporstcar program again in 2010.
'Tommy Boy' enjoys the fruits of his labor last weekend. Kristensen will be missed this weekend, but his partners in the #2 Audi R15 TDI will make up for it by pursuing their own bottle of champagne to drink on the podium. (LAT)

Don’t get me started about DTM, though! The last time I stepped into one of those cars was in 2005 and let's just say it wasn't as nice as my audi R8 at the time. Audi's Jo Hausner keeps wanting to get me back in one. He said, ‘Look, now you will love them. The balance and everything on it has improved.’ I’m perfectly happy to stay right here with my 600 hp Audi R15 TDI!

With no track activity until Wednesday, we didn’t have much to do today. I was at the gym by 7:00am doing exercises and Jo Hausner was on the running machine at the time. I did 45 minutes of neck exercises, and then after that we had a debrief at the track from yesterday. We got everybody’s ideas together and checked out a few bits and pieces. After that, we came down to the Mall of Georgia and tried to get the U.S. economy booming a little bit further! My stimulus package went into a few different shops, thank you!

It’s raining outside, which I’m very used to coming from Scotland. And it’s actually quite tiring because we’re not doing anything and just playing a waiting game a little. We couldn’t even go out and run since it’s so wet, you would come back all cold. And that’s something you don’t want to do just five days before a big race.

I’m now just sitting here going through emails and bits of other pieces. I’m just tiding things up a bit so when it comes to tomorrow night when the real action starts, I’m prepared. I wouldn’t then have to organize something that I could have organized today or Sunday. It’s all those little detail parts of it. I’m just waiting on it to kick off!

~Allan

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, SPEED, FOX, or NewsCorp.



Allan has been racing since the age of 11 and progressed up the motorsport ladder until he reached the pinnacle, Formula 1. Having started in karting, he then progressed through the junior formula, Formula 3, Formula 3000 en route to Sportscar racing, Le Mans 24 Hours and F1.

A two-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, McNish’s tenure as a factory Audi driver has netted the Scottish native three ALMS championships and multiple wins at Sebring and Petit Le Mans.

Allan lives in Monte Carlo, Monaco with his wife Kelly, son Finlay and daughter Charlotte.

Learn more about Allan at www.AllanMcNish.com, about the Audi Driving Experience at http://www.truthinengineering.com/audi-driving-experience/, and to enroll in the Jim Russell Racing School, visit http://www.jimrussellusa.com/
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