12 July 2008 |  Race Day  | Lime Rock
back on track

“Well, you're dirty and sweet
Clad in black, don't look back,
and I love you….”

--Bang a Gong, T.Rex

The opening chords of T. Rex’s classic “Bang A Gong” seem as if they’re made for road racing. It’s that thumping bass line and the mono-note delivery of the lyrics by Marc Bolan that do it for me. Or maybe it’s the memory that the last song I heard before I picked up my 275GTB/4 (my first Ferrari, many years ago) was that one. Whatever.

That song pretty much fits the mood of Lime Rock Park, the place where this weekend’s ALMS race takes place. Lime Rock is set in a bucolic and pastoral area of middle Connecticut. It’s not really close to anything but it’s not too far away from everything in the Northeast either. You can get there by flying into Hartford, Boston, Providence, or New York City.

The country side is gentle rolling hills, green and lush and always reminding you that you are the hill country of New England. Located just outside Lakeville, CT., the race track at Lime Rock is very short, at 1.53 miles in length; it’s a big oval, all right turns except for one left, and it gets very crowded at racing speeds with a group of P1 Audis and P2 Porsches and Accuras and the GT1 Corvettes whipping by about every 44 seconds or so.

We have a mixed history at Lime Rock. In 2004, our 360GT broke through the Porsche onslaught and won it’s first race at the track, stopping Porche’s win streak at 28 in a row.


In 2006, the race was very difficult, marred by a lot of off track incidents and the crash—in his very first race for us—of Finnish driver Toni Villander, who was in one of our 430GTs. Villander, who had qualified well and was going great, was laid low by a P2 car that had been leaking oil for most of the race and was not blackflagged. Vilander was coming down the hill before the front strait when the P2 splashed some oil and went off and Vilander went right into the oil and then off as well, t-boning the P2 car and taking both out of the race. The collision was major and the press box went quiet while everyone waited to see if the drivers were OK. They were, and after a physical at the track medical facility, Vilander walked out on his power, headed for New York and then he and Mika Salo jumped a jet back to Helsinki, where they had VIP tickets for the Rolling Stones concert the next day.

2007 was also difficult. Last year, the problem was Thomas Enge, who hit the No. 62 430 GT(Salo/Melo), which at that time was engaged in a roaring battle for 1st place in theGT2 Category of the series. Enge’s actions knocked us down in the standings. The No. 61 Risi Competizione 430GT, driven by Eric Helary and Nic Jonsson, took a third but the No. 62 didn’t place well. Enge’s actions, which appeared to me to be deliberate, did not sit well with the team. At the next race meeting Mid-Ohio, Enge did it again, hitting the No. 62 car (Salo/Melo); Mika Salo was having none of it this time, and punted Enge off in short order, but it certainly didn’t do much for inter-team relationships as tempers were flaring in the pits. To the everlasting credit of Petersen/White Lightening Racing, their Team Principal, Dale White, fired Enge when he came in for a pit stop, in the process becoming of the great stand up guys in the history of racing.

With Lime Rock history not our favorite topic of conversation, Risi Competizione came back to the little oval in the Catskills with a totally different mission. Coming off the major, season-highlight of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the pressure on the team was to prove that we could do in two hours and 45 minutes what we did so flawlessly in 24 hours at Le Mans.

The lead up to the race was as normal as could be. The 24 Hours of Le Mans was over on the 15th of June; the next day, the team packed up all the gear and First Air—expediters of choice for those in the know—had trucks lined up all along Pit Row at the famous Sarthe circuit to gather up the cars, tool boxes, spares, and other gear and get it over to Heathrow, where it then fly back to the USA via Virgin Air Cargo. On Tuesday, the team flew back and just a few days later the racing assets of Risi Competizione were on the ground in Orlando. A pair of Risi Comp transporters gathered the goodies into the trailers and the trucks made a dash back to the race workshop, where the cars had to be prepped for Lime Rock. The No. 82 car (which becomes No. 62 in ALMS livery), which won Le Mans, needed a complete refit but was did not suffer any structural damage from the race.
The No. 83 430GT (No.61 in ALMS trim) was a different matter, as it had a more-exciting-than-anticipated outing at Le Mans, which mean more work to properly prep the car for Lime Rock.

Last Saturday, the 5th of July, the two big red transporters, loaded and packed the night before, began the long slog up through Texas and on to the upper east coast and Lime Rock. On Tuesday, the 8th, the team jumped a jet to Hartford to meet up with the trucks. Wednesday was load-in day; Thursday was prep day for the cars. Only on Friday, and then for very limited periods of time, would the team get to put the car on the track.

And, of course, this being Lime Rock, there’s always something to deal with. This year, it’s the new surface laid down over the old one, which was bumpier than a rockpile covered with latex. The track is basically an oval, with only one left hander to break the monotony of constant right hand turns of various radius. The right-hand bias is so extreme that cars are set up with a tilt—like a NASCAR oval racing stockcar—to compensate. Read Rick Mayer’s excellent “INSIDE TRACK” preview of Lime Rock to get a full understanding of how the car must be set up for this trace >

Lime Rock may not be the most challenging track on the circuit, but it is potentially the most treacherous. The problem lies in the length of the track and the speed differences between the various classes of cars. The P1 and P2 cars are capable of 46 second laps; the GT1s of laps right around 52 seconds, and GT2s of laps in the 55-56 second range. The lap speeds combined with the short length of the track means that the traffic is never “spread out”, as it is at someplace like Le Mans (approximately 8 miles long, 4 minute lap times for GT2 cars). In other words, a horrendous, high speed traffic jam is always possible on the race track and when traffic jams at 140+MPH, there are accidents, lots and lots of contact, and some pretty frayed nerves at the end of a stint.

Risi Competizione’s mission at Lime Rock is simple: get back into contention. Get back on the podium. Get back on track. We certainly want the second part of the season to be a great improvement over the first part (with Le Mans as the difference maker) and want to see a return to ALMS form that equals the show put on at Le Mans.

Can our boys do it? Based on the serious looks in the race shop last week, I would not bet against them. But they’re going to have to fight some serious recent history to do it.