Another bright, sunny and cloudless day with warm temperatures at lovely Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the second of the three day Continental Tire Sports Car Festival Powered by Mazda. The Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series and the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge have practice and qualifying all morning.
RICHARD WESTBROOK/No.90 Spirit of Daytona Racing Daytona Prototype was the fastest Rolex Series car in the early morning combined practice. His time was 1:21.687/98.630 mph. Second fastest ALEX GURNEY/No.99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing DP is still the fastest overall at 1:21.285/99.118 mph set Friday afternoon.
In the GT category, DANE CAMERON/No.43 Team Sahlen Mazda RX-8 was quickest with a lap of 1:28.007/91.547 mph. Fastest overall for the class is still JOHANNES van OVERBEEK/No.03 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari 458, with his Friday morning time of 1:27.721/91.846 mph.
After the combined practice, the JIM TRUEMAN and BOB AKIN class drivers had their own practice session. The short explanation is that these are Pro-Am drivers, named after late legendary drivers/owners. The Jim Truman driver award goes to a DP driver, while GT drivers vie for the Bob Akin award. These drivers cannot earn a living racing. In other words, they all have a day job.
JOHN PEW/No.60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Ford Riley was the fastest Jim Trueman driver. He won this award the past two years. JOHN POTTER/No.44 Magnus Racing Porsche GT3 took top time for the GT class, third overall of the 14 drivers on course.
The CTSCC field is down to 58 with some changes. JACK ROUSH Jr. rolled his No.61 Roush Performance Mustang Boss GS in Turn Five, fracturing his left wrist. Roush flew home to Ann Arbor, MI and is scheduled for surgery Sunday morning. The team withdrew the entry. Roush’s co-driver was BILLY JOHNSON, who is also racing No.94 Turner Motorsports BMW M3 GT in the Rolex Series. Johnson’s GT co-drivers are BILL AUBERLEN and PAUL DALLA LANA.
In the morning CTSCC practice, the fastest car was No.38 BGB Motorsports Porsche Carrera GS with drivers TED BALLOU and SPENCER PUMPELLY.
BILL AUBERLEN/No.96 Turner Motorsports BMW M3 GS is still the fastest overall CTSCC driver, having set his time Friday morning.
NIC JONSSON and ANDY LALLY/No.10 Kinetic/Kia Kia Forte ST were fastest in the CTSCC ST Class and hold the fastest overall time, set Saturday morning.
Qualifying comes after the practice sessions, and by lunchtime, all the Grand-Am classes will have qualified for their respective races. The CTSCC two hour thirty-minute race starts at 2:30pm local/PT time. The Rolex Series is the feature race on Sunday noon. It is a ‘sprint’ race of two hours and forty-five minutes.