NEGRI: Lime Rock Debrief

I was really looking forward to returning to Lime Rock. My my last race there was in 2013 in a Daytona Prototype. I really like the track – it’s a bullring for race cars.

It was a very compact schedule with two practice sessions and then qualifying on Friday.

The practices went well and everything was looking good for qualifying. I knew it was going to be super close so we had to hit a perfect lap with the Continental Tire when it was at its prime with the right tire pressure and the right amount of fuel.

Unfortunately, we didn’t nail that perfect combination during the qualifying run and we would start the race 12th.

The start of the race was pretty hectic but I had a good opening stint.

Now the goal was to push as hard as I could without abusing the left rear tire. Lime Rock has six right hand corners and only one left hand corner so the left rear tire goes through some abuse.

With good consistent laps and playing well with traffic I ran as high as third before pitting to hand the car over to Jeff (Segal, co-driver).

Jeff jumped in and was getting everything we had out of our Acura NSX GT3, but unfortunately we got hit from by Jeff’s good friend Townsend Bell and we lost a lot of time.

Considering how short of a lap Lime Rock is at just 1.5-miles long, any time spent off track is detrimental to track position. Townsend got a drive through penalty for the hit, but the damage was already done.

It hasn’t been an easy year for us, but we will never give up. See you at Road America – one of my favorite tracks on the IMSA calendar!