Next up for Flying Lizard Motorsports and its No 44 and No 45 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race cars is the 2 hour and 45 minute Orion Energy Systems 245 at Road America. The PR Newswire / eSilicon No 44 will be piloted by Seth Neiman (USA) and Dion von Moltke (South Africa), with the Venezuela / eSilicon No 45 shared by Nelson Canache Jr. (Venezuela) and Spencer Pumpelly (USA). Nelson and Spencer share the driver championship points lead with Jeroen Bleekemolen and Cooper MacNeil with half of the season remaining.
Chief Engineer Steve Conover described the specific issues which the team faces on the longest racetrack (4.048 miles) of the ALMS circuit, saying “Road America is a challenging track. The three long straightaways are unforgiving of excess drag, but there is a large percentage of the lap spent in long turns that demand all of the grip you can muster. The braking zones are complicated by cornering forces and rumble strips that create knockback and tend to result in a low brake pedal for the drivers. The heavy braking after long high speed sections tends to also thermally shock the brake discs and cause additional brake issues. The Carousel turn is almost like a banked oval track turn and merits special attention in that it determines your speed down the back straight. The setup must tolerate nimble change of direction and yet be pliable enough to ride over the rather rough rumble strips.”
Dion added some thoughts from a driver’s point of view, “Road America presents a big challenge to the car and driver in many different ways. To get a car and driver working well around the lap here requires quite a lot of compromise in the setup as well as execution on the driver’s part. At the end of the long straightaways the braking is crucial, and an aggressive brake pad and rotor combination is important while not going too far and losing brake performance towards the end of the race. You can gain time in this way on your competitors and in a spec class that is particularly useful. As a driver you want an aggressive front end on turn in for the corners, especially in turns 5 and 8, where the road falls away from you as you head towards the apex, but you also need a car that has good balance once it takes a set so you can roll good speed through the long duration corners, especially the Carousel. And of course confidence in both ends of the car is critical through the high speed “Kink” on the back straight.”
The 2013 Orion Energy Systems 245 gets the green flag at 2:00pm CDT on Sunday, August 11th. Qualifying will be broadcast live online on ESPN3.com and ALMS.com on Saturday, July 20th from 9:30am to 11:00am CDT. The race will be broadcast live in the United States on ABC from 2:00pm to 5:00pm CDT and online on ESPN3.com and ALMS.com. Internationally it will be available live on MotorsTV and live online on ALMS.com as well.
Source : Flying Lizard Motorsports