Late Driver Change In LG Corvette
Lou Gigliotti confirmed that he will step out of his LG Motorsports Riley Corvette C6 this weekend in favor of young gun Tom Sutherland. The 20-year old second generation racer joins fellow Californians Tomy Drissi and Matt Bell in the Riley Technologies-built GT2 machine.
Gigliotti will watch the race from the sidelines as he equips younger talent behind the wheel of his Riley Corvette. (John Dagys)
“We’re happy to have Tom come on board,” Gigliotti said. “The circumstances worked out right for the both of us. I’ve now got Tom and Matt Bell in the car and figured it will take two young guys to make up for me. Tomy Drissi has just come back from his Trans-Am championship, so the combination of the three should be decent.”
The team had worked on having SPEED World Challenge ace Eric Curran in the car, but plans never materialized. Instead, Sutherland will be making his second start of the ALMS season after his one-off drive with Panoz Team PTG at St. Petersburg in April. He also completed the majority of 2008 for the Virginia-based Panoz squad.
ECO Racing Returns To Grid
Honestly, I wasn’t going to believe it until I saw it in person. But sure enough, ECO Racing pulled into Road Atlanta Saturday morning, unloading its diesel-powered Radical SR10 to take part in testing.
While the colorful LMP1 machine has been relatively unchanged since its last outing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in 2008, the driving force behind this unique project is still as strong as ever. Team Principal Ian Dawson explains:
The ECO Racing Radical ran a considerable amount of laps on Sunday, showing improved progress with the production diesel powered machine. (John Dagys)
“The project is about finding out how you can go racing with a production engine. Can you do it with less people? Could you do it on lower budgets? If you look back three years ago, it didn’t look like a bad idea. But at the end of the day, it still needs a bit more funding to take it up to the next level.”
Dawson has entrusted Japanese veteran Hideki Noda, who drove for the team last year, and newcomers Jose Manuel Balbiani and Dion von Moltke to pilot the LMP1 machine.
“It’s the same engine as we ran for a long time, which is basically a Volkswagen Toureag road car engine, unchanged,” Dawson said of the AER-tuned powerplant. “We’ve run one of these engines for nearly 100 hours. Its fuel efficiency is extremely good, but we have to keep working at it. We’ve seen it can run at the back end of P2, but have better fuel consumption than a GT2 car.”
ECO’s goal is to continue development of the unique car, with an aim towards a full-season campaign in 2010. Dawson has also been working on putting a production-based Nissan engine in his other Radical chassis to be the first car to comply with 2011 LMP2 regulations. He hopes that program will also get off the ground in time for next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans and LMS events.
AER continues to tune the Volkswagen Touraeg-based powerplant. (John Dagys)
“We’ve been looking at the rules of production engines for years. And to try and do it privately is very difficult,” Dawson said. “But we have to bring it out and race it. Whatever you’re fighting against, you have to get out and see where you are at.”
It seems Dawson has always been ahead of his time with new technologies. The 30-year motorsports veteran was the mastermind behind Taurus Sport’s diesel-powered prototype in 2004, a full year before the launch of Audi’s R10 TDI turbo diesel. Will a production-based diesel with proposed bio-fuel be the next wave in sportscar racing?
News and Notes
•I was treated to a hot lap around Road Atlanta today in an SPEED World Challenge Acura TSX from Realtime Racing’s Pierre Kleinubing. It was a blast getting a seat-of-the-pants feel of the 2.54-mile, 12-turn circuit at nearly full speed. I’ve done hundreds of laps around Road Atlanta in racing sims like iRacing, but you can’t feel the g-forces or elevation changes while in front of your computer. This is the real thing, and thanks go out to WC Vision’s Dave Drimmie and the media staff at SCCA Pro Racing for making it happen.
•Talk inside the paddock indicates that as many as two additional teams could be running on alternative fuels in this weekend’s Petit Le Mans. Both are currently evaluating their options and announcements could be forthcoming.
•Two teams have yet arrive as of 4 p.m. today: van der Steur Racing and Rocketsports. The highly anticipated debut of RSR’s Jaguar XKRS is expected to come tomorrow, with the car’s scrutineering appointment scheduled for 1:30 p.m. It’s understood Scott Pruett will likely join owner Paul Gentilozzi behind the wheel, with a third driver announced at the team’s press conference on Thursday.
Family Matters (Courtesy of Michelin)
Greg Pickett, had a problem, actually two problems. The Trans Am series ace had his hands full on the race track fighting off the challenge of a talented young driver from Connecticut named Scott Sharp who was eager to take away his title. And, that was the easy part.
The tough part was that Sharp was interested in dating Pickett’s daughter, Kim, and…and… and… she liked him!
Greg Pickett has been a loyal supporter of Scott Sharp's open-wheel and sportscar programs. (LAT)
Sharp ultimately won Kim’s hand and a healthy share of races and that would be the end of the story except that it is not. It was really just the beginning.
For as the American Le Mans Series teams gather at Road Atlanta, both are still racing.
After a long break between their Trans-Am battles, Sharp and Pickett are now competing again, this time armed with far more high tech machinery.
The son-in-law vs. father-in-law contest is now being waged with some of the most high-tech sports prototype machines ever produced - the unique Acura ARX-02a LMP1 prototype and the giant-killing Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 car.
While Sharp and partner David Brabham lead the 2009 LMP1 points battle for Patrón Highcroft Racing, Pickett and his German co-driver Klaus Graf have been turning heads with two LMP2 class podium finishes in their only 2009 race starts at Mid-Ohio and Road America for the Muscle Milk Team CytoSport squad.
The Sharp and Pickett family reunion will return to Road Atlanta in Georgia this week for one of the toughest
events on the schedule, the 2009 1000 mile / 10 hour Petit Le Mans.
“It has been great to be racing against Greg again,” Sharp said. “In the two races so far, we haven’t really come up against each other on track but back in the Trans-Am days we used to have some fantastic battles.”
Both men have outstanding Trans-Am records. Sharp is a two-time championship winner while fellow championship winner Pickett is the only man to have won Trans-Am races in four separate decades.
Pickett has been enjoying life behind the wheel of a competitive LMP2 race car. (John Dagys)
“I remember when Kim and I first started dating that Greg wasn’t overly impressed at the time,” Sharp said. “That led to some funny moments out on track, some pretty tough battles and some interesting discussions around the dinner table!”
Like their dad, Scott Sharp’s children are now getting the chance to come to the track to see their father in action. But now, it is an added bonus, the Sharp children get to see both dad and grandpa do battle.
“The Porsche RS Spyder is certainly the best car I’ve ever driven and while we are out there to win, the most important thing for me and the Team CytoSport Muscle Milk squad is to have fun,” Pickett said. “And for me, there is
nothing more fun that being able to get the family together at the end of the day in the motorhome, relive the day and have a few laughs.
“It was pretty cool at 62-years-old to be taking part in the podium ceremonies with my son-in-law and have my grandkids hanging around wanting to carry our trophies back to the truck.”
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