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Le Mans / ALMS
IN THE COCKPIT: Oliver Gavin, Road America
To say Road America wasn’t an easy race is probably an understatement, but one that pretty much the whole of the GT field could make...
Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner took their No. 4 Corvette to a fourth place finish at Road America. (Photo: John Dagys)
To say Road America wasn’t an easy race is probably an understatement, but one that pretty much the whole of the GT field could make! It was fast and furious out there as always, and great fun, but Tommy and I seemed to have a few things thrown in our path which didn’t allow us to be fighting for the win on this occasion.
Having said all that, to finish fourth and come out of the weekend still ahead in the points table means a lot to all of us at Corvette Racing.
It’s a shame I had to wait until after the race to see how close the finish was at the front between my countryman Guy Smith in the Dyson Lola and Lucas Luhr in the Muscle Milk HPD. It looked like a heck of an exciting battle, and to cross the line with only 0.083 seconds between them after four hours speaks volumes for the ALMS and the competition within all the classes.
In GT, seven cars finished on the same lap representing five different manufacturers; you can see why the auto companies love it and keep coming back for more.
We all love going to Road America and it’s a smooth and fast track which suits our Corvette well. We’d had good practice sessions, and were pretty sure we could take the fight to anyone on track in terms of pace and performance.
I took the start, Tommy did the middle stint and I finished off the final two hours. It was very close battling with the two Flying Lizard Porsches of Jorg Bergmeister and Marco Holzer in the first hour, and I pitted in second just after the one hour mark under the first of the four full course caution periods.
Unfortunately Tommy got caught in the middle of some slower traffic as the race got underway again, dropping down a number of places, and that kind of summed up the roller-coaster ride of our race. We were up there, then down, then up and then down again.
Tommy handed over to me under the second set of yellows and we set about trying to secure as high a finish as possible with the longer-race-extra-points-available scenario and championship in mind. We got up to second again and things were looking good, but the dice didn’t roll our way at Road America with our strategy and pit stops as the yellows came at just the right time for the BMWs and the wrong time for us. They didn’t need to stop under yellow and we did and that, combined with a problem with the door latch on our No. 4 Corvette, bumped us to the back of the queue again.
When we exited we not only had a number of GT cars ahead of us on track, but also some P2 and PC cars. Racing in a multi-class environment you’re always aware of other battles going on, and I make a big effort not to get in the way of faster cars coming through.
Getting in the way of those battles can seriously affect the outcome of someone’s race result and, when there’s a five-car train such as we had in GT, every second counts. The last ten laps were a bit crazy and very aggressive at the end, with extremely close racing between five or six cars all gunning for victory.
When things shook out we ended up fourth at the checkered flag.
I’m not sure anyone other than Bill Auberlen and Jorg Muller, who won the class for BMW, was very happy with their results, but we’ve got three more very tight races to come and two of those are longer-distance events.
Next up for us is the two-hour street race at Baltimore. It was an amazing event last year, with huge crowds, but I’m sure we all hope we don’t have a repeat of the pile up that marked the start and which left me with mild carbon monoxide poisoning. Ending a race in the medical center is definitely not the way to go!!
~Olly
A former British F3 Champion and Formula One test driver, Oliver Gavin has raced in North America for the last decade for Corvette Racing, representing General Motors. He has achieved three American Le Mans Series GT1 Championship titles and four GT1 class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 2012 will also be racing in select races with Spirit of Daytona in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.
For more information, visit: www.olivergavin.com, Facebook Oliver Gavin, or Twitter @OliverGavin
Having said all that, to finish fourth and come out of the weekend still ahead in the points table means a lot to all of us at Corvette Racing.
It’s a shame I had to wait until after the race to see how close the finish was at the front between my countryman Guy Smith in the Dyson Lola and Lucas Luhr in the Muscle Milk HPD. It looked like a heck of an exciting battle, and to cross the line with only 0.083 seconds between them after four hours speaks volumes for the ALMS and the competition within all the classes.
In GT, seven cars finished on the same lap representing five different manufacturers; you can see why the auto companies love it and keep coming back for more.
We all love going to Road America and it’s a smooth and fast track which suits our Corvette well. We’d had good practice sessions, and were pretty sure we could take the fight to anyone on track in terms of pace and performance.
I took the start, Tommy did the middle stint and I finished off the final two hours. It was very close battling with the two Flying Lizard Porsches of Jorg Bergmeister and Marco Holzer in the first hour, and I pitted in second just after the one hour mark under the first of the four full course caution periods.
Unfortunately Tommy got caught in the middle of some slower traffic as the race got underway again, dropping down a number of places, and that kind of summed up the roller-coaster ride of our race. We were up there, then down, then up and then down again.
Tommy handed over to me under the second set of yellows and we set about trying to secure as high a finish as possible with the longer-race-extra-points-available scenario and championship in mind. We got up to second again and things were looking good, but the dice didn’t roll our way at Road America with our strategy and pit stops as the yellows came at just the right time for the BMWs and the wrong time for us. They didn’t need to stop under yellow and we did and that, combined with a problem with the door latch on our No. 4 Corvette, bumped us to the back of the queue again.
When we exited we not only had a number of GT cars ahead of us on track, but also some P2 and PC cars. Racing in a multi-class environment you’re always aware of other battles going on, and I make a big effort not to get in the way of faster cars coming through.
Getting in the way of those battles can seriously affect the outcome of someone’s race result and, when there’s a five-car train such as we had in GT, every second counts. The last ten laps were a bit crazy and very aggressive at the end, with extremely close racing between five or six cars all gunning for victory.
When things shook out we ended up fourth at the checkered flag.
I’m not sure anyone other than Bill Auberlen and Jorg Muller, who won the class for BMW, was very happy with their results, but we’ve got three more very tight races to come and two of those are longer-distance events.
Next up for us is the two-hour street race at Baltimore. It was an amazing event last year, with huge crowds, but I’m sure we all hope we don’t have a repeat of the pile up that marked the start and which left me with mild carbon monoxide poisoning. Ending a race in the medical center is definitely not the way to go!!
~Olly
A former British F3 Champion and Formula One test driver, Oliver Gavin has raced in North America for the last decade for Corvette Racing, representing General Motors. He has achieved three American Le Mans Series GT1 Championship titles and four GT1 class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 2012 will also be racing in select races with Spirit of Daytona in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.
For more information, visit: www.olivergavin.com, Facebook Oliver Gavin, or Twitter @OliverGavin
Monterey
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