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Grand Am
LAMB: Busy Times
In addition to driving in Rolex GT, I have found plenty of things to do that let me be around the racetrack, and behind the wheel of a Mazda, on a regular basis.
Todd Lamb  | http://www.toddlamb.com  |  Posted April 09, 2010   Birmingham, AL
Lamb competed in a three-hour NASA endurance race at Road Atlanta - and won in his class. (Todd Lamb)
It has been an exciting few weeks between races – the racing season is finally in full swing, with teams continuing to do car testing and development while drivers are working hard to find a little more speed. In addition to driving the Racers Edge/Idemitsu Mazda RX-8 in Rolex GT, I have found plenty of things to do that let me be around the racetrack, and behind the wheel of a Mazda, on a regular basis.

A few weekends ago I ran a 3-hour NASA endurance race at Road Atlanta in a Spec Miata, co-driving with my buddy Rick Sleeper. It was a great opportunity to get back to my club racing roots and have a little fun. Rick is one of those guys that has fun at the track no matter what is happening or how he is running, something us pro racers need to remind ourselves to do every now and then. We won the race in true club racing fashion - no crowds, no podium celebration, no TV coverage. We had a great time getting soaked and simply surviving the monsoon, all for the pure fun of it!

I was at Virginia International Raceway last weekend to do driver coaching and car setup for AMG; helping my championship team from last year prepare for the start of their Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup season. Brad Rampelberg will be driving the car I ran last season, alongside his new AMG teammates Alfred Caiola and Michael Vitarelli. One more driver has yet to be chosen, but somebody has the opportunity to run with a great team in a very fun series that is an important part of the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Ladder Program.

I also spent two days at Roebling Road Raceway in Savannah, GA testing the new i-MOTO MAZDASPEED3. The car was just finished by SpeedSource, and we needed to shake it down prior to the upcoming race at Barber Motorsports Park. Glenn Bocchino and I will be co-driving the #31 Cobalt Friction MAZDASPEED3 the rest of the season in Grand Am’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series. Our teammates, Canadian Taylor Hacquard and veteran World Challenge champion Pierre Kleinubing, will be driving the #32 Cybernation MAZDASPEED3.

With AMG, the MX-5 Cup cars are pretty much the same as last season, but with i-MOTO we’ve got our hands full bringing a new car into the Continental Tire ST series. There is a lot of work that goes into the cars, and it all started with Mazda and SpeedSource getting the basic rules package approved by Grand-Am.
i-MOTO debuts its MAZDASPEED3s at this weekend's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race at Barber Motorsports Park. (Todd Lamb)

From there, SpeedSource obtained cars and began stripping them down to install the cages and build them back up as race cars. Once the first batch of cars were finished and delivered to the Freedom and Sahlen’s teams, testing began prior to the first race at Daytona. Since i-MOTO is getting two new cars ready to race at Barber, we’re able to gather all of the information that is shared among the Mazda teams and be as far along in the development curve as the teams that had cars running in January at Daytona.

While the cars are actually quite similar to the cars on the showroom floor, there are a few things that stand out as being quite different. First of all, we are required to run a restrictor plate to reduce intake air flow, and we are regulated to a maximum boost level. The car receives a performance alignment including springs, Koni shocks and Continental Tire racing slicks, a set of Cobalt Racing brake pads on the stock calipers, and of course all the required safety equipment from Sparco and SafeRacer. Topping it all off is a MoTeC data acquisition system which logs parameters such as boost, brake pressure, throttle position, lap times, g-forces, and the ever important rpm and mph.

At the track there is a lot of tuning to be done – getting each element to work in harmony for the best lap times. We made a lot of progress during our testing at Roebling Road, which was confirmed and validated by looking at data. TriPoint team owner Craig Nagler has been assisting us with setup, and his FWD experience in World Challenge with the MAZDA6’s is proving very useful. We’ll continue development at the Barber race and expect the cars will be ready to win races soon.

The reader questions keep coming, this time some savvy racing fans want to know about the mental aspects of driving - send your questions to pr@toddlamb.com

Curtis: What's the biggest challenge jumping from ST to GT cars in the same weekend?
In going from the RX-8 in GT to the MAZDASPEED3 in ST, there are many differences that require being focused on the right car at the right time. For me, the biggest challenge is in the footwork. The RX-8 has a sequential gearbox (no clutching required) allowing left foot braking, while the Speed3 has a standard gearbox which requires right foot braking so the left foot is free to work the clutch. For the first few corners I have to make sure I stay focused so I don’t instinctively go for the brake pedal with the wrong foot.

Geri: What is the biggest mental challenge you experience while driving?
There’s no question that racing is like a game of high speed chess, and from my perspective one of the major challenges any driver faces is adjusting to the subtly changing conditions throughout a race. Tires fade, the track gets greasy, the weather and wind direction change, pit strategy comes into play, and drivers changes take place. In endurance racing it is not enough to hit your marks – the added challenge is that those marks are a moving target based on enough variables to make your head spin. This makes racing experience one of the most valuable commodities in the paddock.

Todd Lamb has been involved with racing since the age of 10. Growing up in Michigan, he got his start racing karts on dirt, asphalt, and street racing circuits throughout the Midwest. Lamb took some time away from karting to get a Mechanical Engineering degree, but his passion for racing brought him back to the sport soon afterward. He took a Skip Barber Racing School at Road America and entered his first Professional SportsCar race in 1998.

In 2002, Todd left his automotive engineering job in Detroit and took a break from racing to start a magazine publishing company. Producing both car and motorcycle magazines, he wasn’t too far removed from the racing world and kept his driving skills sharp with track days, tire tests, and vehicle evaluations on track.

Recently, Lamb returned to sports car racing, winning 3 straight championships with Mazda – two in Spec Miata and one in the Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup series. In addition, Todd ran in the Grand Am Continental Tire Challenge in both the Street Touring (ST) and Grand Sport (GS) classes the past few seasons, with an eye towards stepping up to the Rolex GT series.

This year follow along as Lamb achieves his dream, competing in his rookie season as a driver for Mazda in the Racer’s Edge Motorsports RX-8 in the Grand Am Rolex series. Keep track of Todd at toddlamb.com, twitter.com/toddspeed, facebook.com/toddspeed, and mazdausa.com

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