WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Leh Keen (Charleston, S.C.) finished sixth in today’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship GTD class Oak Tree Grand Prix at Virginia International Raceway.
MacNeil started eighth in the No. 22 WeatherTech Porsche and showed good pace during his stint despite fighting chassis issues, which the team fought all weekend. However, MacNeil persevered through the heat and changing car conditions to have the Alex Job Racing-prepared Porsche in sixth place by the time his stint was up.
“The car was not as good as we needed it to be,” MacNeil said. “But, that’s not by any lack of effort from the whole AJR crew. Hats off to them for doing a great job this weekend. We had some great stops. The brakes were great, but we fought the chassis set-up, especially with the change in temperature.
“My stint was OK. The car kept changing lap by lap. One lap, I’d have a lot of understeer everywhere. And, the next lap, I’d have a lot of oversteer, but no understeer. This kept on lap after lap. It was a bit frustrating driving the car because it kept changing on me. It wasn’t easy to keep it underneath me. But, we managed to turn some decent times. It was pretty hot in the car for me because I forgot to plug my cool suit in. So, it got pretty hot in the car about halfway through my stint, which didn’t affect my pace too much. But, I definitely had to wipe the sweat from my eyes a few times each lap.”
On lap 28, MacNeil made his pit stop and that’s when Keen got into the car. By this time, the car was about 30 seconds behind the GTD leaders. This meant Keen had a lot of track position to make up if he was going to make a run at a podium finish. Undaunted by this challenge, Keen had the No. 22 Porsche in fourth place by lap 53 even though he still fought handling issues.
On lap 59, Keen came in for his second pit stop. During this stop, the team made some adjustments to improve the car. Thanks to the changes, Keen turned laps faster during his second stint than his first. In fact, he chased down the No. 48 Audi late in the race and battled him for fifth place. But, Keen ran out of time and finished sixth.
“My first stint was pretty interesting,” Keen said. “It was pretty bad actually. We didn’t have any control of the tires. We had a really inconsistent car. We lost a lot of time dealing with that. The guys made a [tire] pressure change for my second stint and the car was much better. During my second stint, we ran multiple laps that were faster than those laps in my first stint. I wish we had that car in our first stint. The guys worked hard. But, we are still struggling with the car. We need to find a little bit more speed so we can end the season on a good note.”
“We had hoped for something better than P6,” Team Owner Alex Job said. “But, considering how bad the car was on Friday and Saturday, we certainly made a step forward today. But, it’s not enough yet. We just lost too much track position in the early part of the race and we just couldn’t make up enough of it at the end of the race. Quite frankly, we could have been P4. But, the early lost track position cost us.”
Up next, the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship travels to Austin, Texas for the Lone Star Le Mans Sept. 17-19 at Circuit of The Americas.