PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING
Practice began on Thursday, but I was a day late due to prior testing commitments. When I got to my hotel room on Thursday night I was pleased to discover that we were third quickest in GT during the Thursday afternoon session.

I first got in the car on Friday morning. We had an hour long session and all three of us drove. I felt that the car was too soft for the smooth Homestead infield road course, so we decided to make some shock changes for the next session.

I started the second session and was pleased with the changes to the car. We ended up being third quickest in each of the practice sessions that morning both times behind the PTG BMW's.

All that was left on Friday was qualifying later in the afternoon. Jay Policastro was our starting driver, so he did the honors. In the second practice session after a pretty good run through the banking I had hit the rev limiter in sixth as I approached turn one. On Jay's first time by he was on the limiter prior to the start finish line so I knew immediately that he was going to post a strong effort. He ended up qualifying us third behind Boris Said in a PTG BMW and Ian James in a Racer's Group Porsche. His time was only three tenths of a second off the pole.

We had one more session on Saturday prior to the race. Joe Policastro drove the first twenty-five minutes and then I got in for the last fifteen and did some more shock tuning. Jay had provided some good feedback on the car after his qualifying run and I was trying to turn that into some additional improvements to the car. I was pleased with the results and felt that we would have an even better car for the race.

THE RACE
The race had a scheduled start time of 3pm. The length of the race was two hours and forty-five minutes or 109 laps, whichever came first. Our plan was to have Jay start, Joe run the middle stint and me finish. Starting from third position Jay got us off to a good start and was running within a few seconds of Boris Said's BMW, which was leading the class. This continued for most of the first half hour of the race with the front of the GT field bunched together tightly. About halfway through his stint Jay started to report that he was having tire problems over the radio. He was forced to slow down a little to cool the tires and consequently the lead GT cars pulled away a little. In the later stages of his stint as the tires cooled off Jay was able to get back to his normal pace and the gap to the front running cars stayed fairly constant.

Jay had been running a great pace all weekend and our plan was to leave him in the car until he was out of fuel. This occurred around the fifty minute mark. The race track had stayed green the entire first fifty minutes and almost all the GT cars, including the class leading BMWs had already pitted when we came in. Our stop was a good one and Joe Policastro took over the controls.

One car was able to stay out slightly longer than the rest of the GT field and that was the #67 Racer's Group Porsche driven by Kevin Buckler. Just after we had completed our pit stop there was a full course yellow. Car #67 was able to pit under that caution and consequently went a lap up on the field. Buckler's co-driver Liz Halliday took over during the stop.

Joe was able to run down and pass the #67 Porsche to technically put us back on the same lap, but we were still nearly a full lap behind. During the middle portion of the race the two BMWs retook the lead two positions followed by the Racer's Group car in third.

On around lap 67 we pitted for fuel and a driver change and I took over the controls. The pit stop was again completed under green flag conditions, so by the tire I got back in the car we were in sixth position. The running order was BMW, BMW, Racer's Group Porsche, Maserati, Corvette, and finally the Orbit Porsche. The two BMWs were a lap up on us and were running a strong pace so I had no hope of climbing any higher than the third spot.

Initially, it seemed like I was cursed when it came to the traffic, but after about ten minutes in the car I was able to get into a pretty good rhythm and we quickly moved past the Maserati and the Corvette into fourth place. I began pushing hard trying to reel in the Racer's Group Porsche for the final podium spot. Kevin Buckler was back on board and I had gotten their lead down to about thirty seconds, but it seemed to stabilize in that vicinity.

Luckily, we finally got a full course caution at a good time. With about fifteen or twenty minutes remaining there was a caution period that bunched up the field and considerably shortened the lead of Buckler's Porsche. We had seven cars separating us on the restart and I quickly dispatched a couple of them when a second full course caution arrived. We didn't need this, as it shortened the race and lessened the time I had left to chase Buckler. By the time we went green again we were inside of ten laps to go.

This time the overall leader took off a little early and I ended up getting a terrible restart -not what I needed in these circumstances. It took about four laps for me to dispense of the first four of the five cars separating me from Buckler, but the last one was the #66 Racer's Group Porsche - Buckler's teammate. Obviously I was concerned about team orders and my fears were confirmed when the #66 car started blocking me and holding me up. The #66 car was several laps down so I wasn't appreciating the interference and I made this clear at one point by planting my front bumper into the back of the #66 car.

When I finally got past there were only two laps remaining and Buckler was still about five seconds up the road. I pushed like mad, but was unable to reel him in and we finished in fourth position about a second from the podium.

It was a disappointing result given that the crew and my co-drivers all did exactly what was expected of them. We clearly didn't have the pace to run with the BMWs, but we certainly would have been on the podium if not for an ill-timed full course yellow.

The GT race was won by Bill Auberlen and Boris Said as the two PTG cars finished one-two. From what I've heard the Daytona Prototype battle at the front was pretty exciting so I'm looking forward to the March 7 broadcast on Speed Channel.

On a brighter note the fourth place finish means that I will take the GT points lead with me to the next race at Phoenix International Raceway on April 10.