Utah Preview

There are twenty-two entries for Utah. Or is it twenty-three, or eighteen? It might finally be 20, and it could have been sixteen, we suppose, given that Primetime was on the fence before squeezing out the funding for one more race before hitting the bricks for cash over the Le Mans break. What we’ve heard of sponsorship availability leads us to believe that if seeing the Viper race is important to you, it will be important to get to Miller. Likewise, we’re a little surprised to finally see Corsa’s Zytek (yes it is Steve Pruitt’s ‘home track’) and uncertain of entries after Salt Lake, so again, our advice is to head for Utah.

If you do, your interest in Zyteks and Vipers is commendable, even heroic, since we can’t think of any more miserable place on the planet to watch a sports car endurance race than Miller Motorsports Park. That’s not a Johnny-come-lately attitude, either. We gave this less-than-glowing review on our first visit, and the ALMS’ debut in the desert. http://www.sportscarpros.com/across-the-border-features-from-guests/features/snake-bitten-in-the-utah-desert/default.htm

Once your gaze drops from the mountain vistas, this place looks pretty much uninhabitable. It doesn’t help that the main business here is the Army’s chemical and germ warfare dump right up the road from the track. Mostly it’s photographers who like it – undoubtedly because they’ve just come from backdrop-hell-times-three (Sebring, St. Pete and Long Beach) and are blown away that they can get some hills in the background of their shots. The best images we’ve seen taken here (being in the business, we’ve seen a lot) are the ones that have a bunch of mountain and little or no car and track in the frame.

P1 is a match race between Patrón Highcroft and de Ferran Motorsports. Some would point to the pair of Lolas and call that another match race. Fair enough, but one fans “will little note or long remember.” We think that this Lola-Lola contest is easily summarized: If Intersport’s Lola survives, it will outpace Autocon’s. So far, they are 1-1 head-to-head. Flip a coin.

If Corsa’s unsponsored Ginetta-Zytek 09HS races it will be in a de facto class of its own. Those who see its regenerative-braking-energy-recovery system, as we have, marvel at its small size and minimal weight, far less than the difference between, say, Allan McNish and Clint Field. That’s not the problem, according to those who know, however. It’s battery technology and the complex software and control electronics in the system and getting them to work in a way that actually contributes to improved – or even neutral – performance on a race track. We can find no clear evidence that the team or manufacturer have done the testing and development needed to bring this kind of car to the track safely. One concern raised by experts is battery overheating. Does IMSA and the SCCA have the right fire equipment on hand to deal with a battery fire? It’s not the same stuff, you know.

Given all that, we expect the hybrid capability will be unplugged for Sunday’s race, so look for the car – if it starts, and if it finishes – to be the bookmark between the pair of Acuras and the pair of Lolas. That will give it a podium finish in its sole 2009 ALMS season outing.

It doesn’t help that Highcroft’s Scott Sharp has been off in Indianapolis struggling to a mid-field grid spot, while Pagenaud and de Ferran have been concentrating on sports car road racing, Pagenaud honing his skills – and winning – at Spa in a Peugeot 908. Of course the French diesel is a different animal than the Big Wheel Acura, but nothing could be more different than the Indianapolis circuit.

Actually, for all that’s wrong with Miller Motorsport Park, the Alan Wilson-designed track is the kind of busy course (that’s not materially changed by competing on the perimeter version) for which the Acura’s rear-tires-on-the-front configuration was developed, so we certainly expect the two of them to run away and hide (not an easy thing to do in Miller’s open, flat expanses). The question is which of them will run the fastest and thus the furthest. Gil and Simon were very good on this course in their debut race last year, and we expect they’ll be good enough this time to deliver the team’s first untainted class (and overall) victory. Still, the race between the two ARX-02a’s should be one of the highlights of Sunday’s race.

P2 has the potential to deliver the second of three good raced at Miller, with Dyson Racing’s Mazda engine having had its increased restrictor/decreased boost extended. That’s likely to bring the performance of the Lola coupes even closer to the Acura ARX-01b than they were at Long Beach. In terms of race laps, that difference was less than seven-tenths of a second. The Lola – unlike its predecessor Porsche Spyder – is a car that “does what we expect a race car to do,” according to a key Dyson technician. So they’ve come to grips with the coupes much more quickly. B-K couldn’t get much closer than three seconds; with an assist from Michelin, Dyson is about to make a contest of it. We think this one will be in doubt all the way to the checkered flag.

Most of the entries that count (other than as rolling road blocks) in this race are GT2’s, headed by one Ferrari and two Porsches. Risi Competizione’s Ferrari F430 is a slight favorite over Flying Lizard’s No. 45 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. Farnbacher Loles’ Porsche is well piloted, but team performance remains in question (we aren’t really fans of “luck” here, we subscribe to the saying about preparation and opportunity).

Behind those three, BMW will benefit from a little more power, having accepted a bit more weight in return for more air to the engine through the restrictor. The Bimmer’s (and Ferrari’s) strength against the Porsches is handling, with the latter holding the cards in a straight line. Although Miller’s winding course puts some premium on handling, we’re told that there’s really just one good passing opportunity, and that’s at the end of the long front straight. That’s easily defended with horsepower – which the Porsche boxer 6 has here over cars with more cylinders for the same principle of physics that benefit turbos.

Panoz has a restrictor you can stick your head in, but we don’t expect much, nor do we from Robertson Racing’s Doran Ford, though we’re happy to see Andrea on the entry, after she didn’t appear on its first version. After David Murry, she’s the team’s “go to” driver. VICI and Primetime will join Team PTG and the Robertsons in a pack between the real GT2 contenders and the Patrón Challenge rolling obstacles.

We’ll hope those covering the race for fan not at the track (that’s just about everybody) are smart enough to focus on Acura-Acura, Dyson-Fernandez, and Risi-Lizard. The rest are pretty much filler.