While they weren’t able to repeat their Canadian Tire Motorsports Park victory, Tomy Drissi and Bruno Junquiera fought hard pushing the No. 9 RSR Dog Days Diary of a Wimpy Kid LMPC car to a 4th place finish at the American Le Mans presented by Tequila Patron Mid-Ohio Sports Car Championships at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio.
Featuring the Dog Days Diary of a Wimpy Kid livery on their ORECA LMPC car, Tomy and Bruno took on one of the most popular tracks on the ALMS championship circuit, the legendary Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, a natural terrain road-racing circuit featuring 13-turns and several elevations changes over 2.25 miles. The track lived up to its difficulty factor aided by high temperatures and extremely slick surface conditions.
“This is a great track, but it can be tough” noted Drissi. “Today it was exceptionally tough. I had a good run going and was leading early on. Though actually, the car was a handful in the opening laps. It takes quite a while to get heat into these spec Michelins and the car was really unpredictable. I was getting a lot of pressure from other cars in the LMPC class.”
“The last few races have seen some pretty intense traffic jams,” said Tomy. “But nothing like this. The LMPC cars typically are much faster than the GT cars. But in the early stages of the race, our tires aren’t up to temperature. The GT cars are on a softer race compound and they’re ready to go at the drop of the flag. LMPC drivers are struggling to hold their position and hold their line… meanwhile, the GT guys want to go. It was great fight for the first half hour, though pretty crazy for the first half dozen laps.”
“I’m personally frustrated as I thought we could have had a second place or winning car,” added Tomy. “I had a great opening sting going, but then made a mistake under breaking. Bruno did a fantastic job of moving us back into striking position, but we just ran out of time.”
“Once again, RSR did a great job of setting up the car,” added Tomy. “Paul [Gentilozzi] and his sons had the car up-to-speed pretty much right of the trailer. We’ll get ‘em at Road America in a couple of weeks.”
The livery for No. 9 car featured the movie Dog Days Diary of a Wimpy Kid opening Friday August 3rd. This is the third movie in the series.
The team’s next event is the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón Road America Road Race Showcase at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., on Saturday, August 18.
Source : Tomy Drissi