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American LeMans
ALMS: Mosport Post-Race Notebook
Wreck-filled race, AutoCon's rise, Five minutes away from victory and more
John Dagys  |  Posted August 30, 2010   Bowmanville, ON
With a severely damaged barrier, there was no realistic way to be back racing in a timely matter. (Rick Dole)
Wreck-Filled Weekend

Sunday’s Grand Prix of Mosport was shaping up to be a pretty typical American Le Mans Series race. But that certainly changed two hours into the scheduled two-hour and 45-minute contest when Luke Hines suffered a massive crash on the Mario Andretti Straight.

PHOTOS: Mosport Sunday Photo Gallery

While Hines walked away unscathed from the wheel of his Orbit/Paul Miller Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, the armco barrier was a different story. Hines’ high-speed impact caused considerable damage to the barrier, forcing IMSA to throw only the second red flag in the Series’ 12-year history.

The clock stopped with 29 minutes remaining while race and track officials went to work undertaking repairs. But 49 minutes later, IMSA made the decision to call the race early, as repairs would have taken upwards of three hours to complete properly.

“We delayed enough for the possibility of that we may have been able to get back going,” explained IMSA Race Director Beaux Barfield. “But we were also still under a time window for television. There was a very small window we had to try and get that kind of repair done and get back going.

“When we realized it wasn’t going to happen, just for the sake of the show, we put everyone around to take a real checkered flag, finish up and do the podium ceremonies.”
The red flag came out for only the second time in ALMS history, less than a year after the rain-shortened Petit Le Mans. (John Dagys)

For the record books, the official time of race was two hours and 19 minutes, also marking only the second time a series race has not gone the full scheduled distance or time.

“It was really a matter of time,” Barfield said of the repairs. “The track did a great job in accessing all of the equipment and all of the materials they needed. But in terms of manpower and being able to do it properly and quickly, it was next to impossible.

“That’s something that we might have been able to happen and get back going in an hour and and a half. But it’s probably going to take them a few days to get it back to where it needs to be.”

The general consensus in the paddock post-race was that IMSA made the right call. If the race had restarted with a barrier that was only partially repaired, it no doubt would have been a major safety concern and put the lives of drivers in jeopardy.

Hines’ shunt was one of four major accidents at Mosport last weekend. On Wednesday, Romeo Kapudija nearly wrote-off his Porsche Cup car in a massive 30g side-impact into the Turn 2 wall, sending Kapudija to the hospital twice with rib pains.

Pierre Kaffer suffered similar fate on Saturday when the German lost control of his Risi Competizione Ferrari and slammed head-on into the Turn 1 wall at over 150 mph. Kaffer luckily also escaped serious injury, but was also taken to a local hospital for observation.

Coupled with Dirk Muller’s aerobatics early in the race, also another frightening crash, it gave drivers and team owners reason for concern, especially with the severity of the shunts.

“This is a difficult race track with a lot of walls,” said Jaguar RSR team principal/driver Paul Gentilozzi. “It’s the fastest track we race on. So we have to, as an organization, and as a group, be concerned. We don’t do this to take on unnecessary risks.

“It’s a tough track with a bit of a reputation. We all love driving here, and honestly it has the best fans, the most knowledgeable anywhere in [North America]. So it’s not like we don’t want to come to Mosport, we just want to come safely.”

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Mosport is one of the few remaining purist’s circuits around. With it’s 2.4-mile, 10-turn circuit remaining relatively unchanged through the years, it provides drivers with a challenge unlike any other in North America.

Make no doubt, Mosport is a driver and fan favorite, and recent strides to improve run-off areas have no doubt helped the safety aspect. Even race director Barfield, a former open-wheel standout, loved racing at Mosport. But the nature of the ALMS, with its four classes, each different closing speeds, causes some reason for concern.
The multi-class nature of the ALMS presents challenges not only at Mosport, but also other circuits in North America. (John Dagys)

“I have my concerns based on the speed differential that is inherent in multi-class racing,” Barfield said. “That’s the only thing that I really lose sleep over on these weekends when we come up to Mosport. But in terms of the safety of the track and our ability to respond, if I felt less than comfortable with that, then we would certainly have a problem.”

While Barfield has tossed around the idea of having split class races at Mosport, he admitted it would lose the heritage of the ALMS with having four different classes of cars on the track at the same time.

Gentilozzi shared his concerns in Sunday’s pre-race driver’s meeting following the string of high-speed accidents earlier in the weekend. While all drivers thankfully escaped serious injury, it could just be a matter of time before the inevitable happens.

“Honestly I’m trying to stay out of politics,” Gentilozzi said. “I wasted five or six years of my life being in politics in racing and there’s no future in that. I expressed my opinion [Sunday] morning at the driver’s meeting and I think everybody agreed that we’re too far from a major trauma center not to have a helicopter [on site].

“I got spoiled in Champ Car where we always had a helicopter. If that helicopter left, we didn’t race until another one came. Had there not been a helicopter at the Champ Car test at Road America, Cristiano da Matta would be dead.”

Ontario’s medical helicopter service differs from the U.S. in that a single government-appointed service, Ornge, is in charge of all flights, prohibiting private companies from being used. Ornge’s fleet of 12 air ambulances are on-call throughout the Provence, and could make stops at Mosport if necessary.

That leaves the ALMS and track officials in a tough situation, especially with circumstances appearing to be beyond their control.

“Whatever the reasons are, I trust the ALMS organization,” Gentilozzi said. “I’m sure they’re going to work on it for next year. I think all of the car owners were concerned. It’s just something we have to do.”

AutoCon’s Rise

For the second time in three races, AutoCon Motorsports made its way onto the LMP podium. Johnny Mowlem and Tony Burgess drove to a third place finish overall, the best-ever result for the Mike Lewis-led organization.

The weekend got off to a rough start as a fuel cell issue forced the bright orange Lola B06/10 AER to sit out most of the promoter test session on Friday. But Mowlem rebounded to qualify fifth, just 1.161 seconds off pole-sitter Klaus Graf’s time.
Limping home without a clutch, the AutoCon Lola enjoyed its best finish of the season. (John Dagys)

While Toronto-native Burgess took the opening and final stints, Mowlem once again starred during his drive in the middle stint. One week after leading the race outright at Road America for an hour, Mowlem again showcased the potential of the package, setting times that matched the pacesetters up front.

“I’m pleased for the team,” Mowlem said. “We had so many problems and were limited on laps in the lead up to here. We only did two laps on Friday morning. But we got lucky with the yellow in the race and at the end of my stint, I was catching Brabs. It’s quite nice to finish third overall, a proper third.”

Coming off its fifth place overall, third in class result at Mid-Ohio with Tomy Drissi and Bryan Willman and its strong run at Road America, it’s clear that the confidence level within the team is building.

“We didn’t back into this,” Lewis said. “These guys went out and earned it this time. It’s so rewarding as a team. We’ve worked so hard and Tony did so well today in front of his home crowd. It’s great and really helps us in the points and gives us a lot of momentum moving forward.

“Tony made this possible by bringing [Johnny] in," Lewis added. "We talked about it for a long time, but he actually stepped up and made it happen. From a setup standpoint and also bringing real pace to the team, being able to put it up front, it’s been a huge boost for everyone. It’s been plus upon plus having Johnny around.”

After a rocky start to the season, highlighted by a rather disastrous outing at Le Mans, things appear to be back on the rise for Lewis and company. It goes to show that the little teams can enjoy success too, despite running their operation at a fraction of the budget of most other LMP squads.

“You can’t get much lower than we were at Le Mans,” Lewis said. “It was a struggle, but everyone sucked it up. The car has been good all year, with the exception of that race. It’s had the capability of doing this. So it’s nice to see us finally put the pieces together, all at one time.”

Five minutes away from victory?

At one point in the race, it appeared the BMW Rahal Letterman Racing M3s had a case of role reversal. After crashing out last week, the No. 92 car of Bill Auberlen and Tommy Milner was out front in GT, while its sister Road America-winning machine of Dirk Muller and Joey Hand was done for the day following Muller's massive accident.
Bill Auberlen and Tommy Milner came five minutes away from a potential GT class victory. (John Dagys)

Hopes for a second consecutive victory for BMW faded with yellow flag for Hines’ crash, just five minutes after Milner had pitted from the lead for his final stop. It had put the No. 92 car one lap down from the No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche and No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari, which had used the caution period to pit.

With the race not restarting under green, Milner and Auberlen were forced to settle for third, still a decent result considering the shape they were in just one week ago. Auberlen, who was knocked unconscious from the high-speed accident at Road America, also suffered a broken rib, but soldered on to complete the opening 45 minutes of the race.

"The team had to go straight home to Columbus [Ohio], build up a bare chassis in two days, then go straight to Mosport," Auberlen said. "We pitted out of sequence, which would have worked out really well had the race not been red-flagged. Because of the shortened race, we didn't get to battle, but we finished on the podium and we led a lot of the race.”

But there were also heavy hearts in the BMW camp this weekend, as Jack Pitney, BMW’s vice president of North American marketing, died in an accident on Thursday. Pitney was 47.

Successful Pit Procedure

With the tight nature of Mosport’s pit road, IMSA elected to use a revised pit procedure for this weekend only. While under a full course caution, only the LMP and LMPC cars were allowed to pit on the first lap of the pits being opened, with the GT and GTC machines making their stops on the following lap.

“I was very pleased with splitting the pit opening for prototypes and GT,” race director Beaux Barfield said. “It actually was a little bit difficult for everybody to understand and react properly to from the beginning from a team’s standpoint and officiating standpoint. The second time we did it, it was nice and clean.

The procedure had some hidden benefits too, as it helped organize the field according to class. With LMP and LMPC cars pitting first, and the Challenge class typically having longer stops due to its rules, the LMP cars got out ahead. It was the same for GT and GT the following lap.

“I really like the way it ended up organizing the field,” Barfield said. “With few exceptions to the people that don’t pit, you have this nice organization of the field in order of speed, potentially from LMP all the way down to GTC. It made for the restarts to look good.

“That’s not why we did it; we wanted to spread out pit stops and keep the congestion in the pit lane to a minimum. But the positive byproduct is that it organized the field to put everything in order to the restart.”

While Barfield said they’ll go back to the previous unrestricted standard at the Petit Le Mans, especially with it being an ACO qualifying event with European entrants, he’ll be considering all options for 2011 in maintaining the integrity of the competition in all classes.

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