Hawksworth: Removed Bus Stop Curbing “Wildly Different”

Photo: IMSA

Jack Hawksworth said the removal of the curbing on the entrance to the Bus Stop Chicane will make Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen a completely different race, at least for the GT runners.

Hawksworth, who claimed GTD Pro class pole for the third leg of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, earned a new track qualifying record in the process, in what came in a delayed qualifying session for WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors.

Two pieces of the Turn 5 curbing came apart in the closing stages of the Michelin Pilot Challenge race, which ended under full-course caution as a result, and postponed WeatherTech Championship qualifying by nearly two hours, partly to run the time-dependent Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America race.

Track officials, in consultation with IMSA, decided to remove a large part of the curbing instead of making repairs, which nearly immediately led to an accident by two-time and defending GTD class champion Russell Ward in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo after Ward lost control of his car while going over the now-curbless section.

While GTD qualifying was abandoned due to not having sufficient green flag running time, qualifying in the three other classes ran to their full duration without any incidents.

“It’s wildly different, certainly in our car,” said Hawksworth on the revised configuration. “The curb that was previously in the Bus Stop, when we hit that with the center of the car, it was quite a big jump, which really changed the whole feel of the Bus Stop.

“Now you can really almost be up to the metal fence, kind of like the NASCAR guys do. It really doesn’t affect the car.

“It opens up the corner a lot more. The corners are quicker. Certainly for us in our car it was very, very different. It did alright, because you’ve got that guardrail.

“Normally when we’re driving really close to guardrail, it’s second, third gear corners, so it’s easier to judge exactly where the side of your car is.

“When you do it fourth gear entering at 110 miles an hour to a corner like that, it’s quite difficult.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s balls to the wall. It was fun to drive, that’s for sure.”

GTD runner Zach Robichon, meanwhile, said the removal of the curb will “definitely” change the race.

“We kind of went through there not knowing how much of that, call it a curb, call it whatever you want to call it, so we were going to do one lap where we [avoided] it completely, and then we were going to actually push. Then after that we saw what happened.

“I think potentially that’s what happened to the 57 car. If you hit that curb wrong, because now if you kind of look before you start, you kind of ramped over it.

“Whereas now I think if you were to attack that turtle or whatever, if you hit it wrong, you can have some consequences.

“We’ll see what they do tomorrow. It’s definitely changed the race because even just on a sighting lap, it looks totally different.”

IMSA allowed teams a 45-minute window late Saturday for a track inspection following the delayed qualifying session, with the former areas of the curbing set to be painted overnight by track officials to provide better visibility of the racing surface.

LMP2 class pole-sitter Jeremy Clarke believes the ORECA-chassied prototypes will be able to be “more aggressive” going into the braking zone.

“Now that the curbing is mostly gone, it completely changes the line for us, and we’re able to get more over and it opens up the entire corner,” he explained. “I’m sure we carry much more speed through there now.

“I think we can be a little bit more aggressive going into the brake zone of those corners where we have a bit more space now on the inside, to whereas before if you’re not quite alongside a GT before that section, they’re going to kind of squeeze you over into a spot that if you go over that, the car is done.”

Jack Aitken, who like Hawksworth, set a new class qualifying record in the process, doesn’t feel like it will have as much of an impact with the GTP machinery, which have traditionally stayed away from the curbing in that section of the track.

“Any time the track changes through a weekend, it’s not ideal,” he said. “But I think IMSA did a good job under the circumstances.

“I think it hasn’t changed the line a huge amount for us. GT guys, they get a lot more now, but we just don’t have the [ground] clearance for that.

“There’s still a few little curbs that potentially could cause a lot of damage.

“I think there was some chat before [qualifying] of maybe you could cut it and maybe you cant. The consequences of cutting it and bottoming out harder at 180 km/h is obviously quite frightening.

“So I wasn’t going to be the first one to do it. If I see someone else try it, then I might. But I don’t think anyone did.”

When asked by Sportscar365 if he thinks it could change the dynamic of traffic in the race, Aitken said: “We have corners like that on the calendar where the GTDs can cut a lot more than the prototypes. It does make it a bit awkward sometimes.

“It’s not something we haven’t dealt with before. It’s not ideal, but I think if this is the best we can do under the circumstances, that’s how it is.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John