We were racing the #44 Orbit Racing Porsche in the GT class and I shared the driving duties with Joe and Jay Policastro. The weather looked a little sketchy when I arrived on Thursday night. There was a media event including a go-kart race at a nearby kart track and the rain was so heavy that the race was red flagged before the halfway mark.

PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING

Friday morning we had an hour and a half practice session. We were intending to try and get all three drivers in the car as well as get some set-up work done on the Porsche. We arrived at Watkins Glen with a new spring package so we needed to spend some time tuning the car to the changes. Unfortunately, a lot of the other cars had encounters with the various gravel traps and barriers around the circuit so most of the session was red flagged. None of us ended up in the car for many laps. I got three, and managed a 1:57.6, which put us fifth or sixth in GT.

About the only useful information we were able to glean from the first session was that the gears were way too long. We decided to shorten third through sixth gears, but there wasn't time to make the change prior to the next session, so it would have to wait until Friday night.

The next session was at 2:10pm and only lasted forty minutes. Once again the session was beset with red flags and we didn't get much track time. We spent enough time running to determine that we needed to make a few shock changes.

We had one session remaining on Saturday morning prior to qualifying, but it started to pour a few minutes prior to the start. Of course this meant even more carnage and I ended up doing only one lap. Unfortunately, the wet conditions meant that we had no opportunity to evaluate our gear or shock changes prior to qualifying.

Qualifying for GT and SGS class cars began at 1:00pm and the track was dry, except for a few small puddles left over from the morning rain. I was up toward the front of the line and had a couple of clean laps to start off the session, but the new fifth and sixth gears were way too short and I spent the entire back straight at half throttle riding the rev limiter in sixth. As a consequence, I could only manage a 1:57.3, which put us in a disappointing seventh position. Even more disappointing was the fact that the Porsche seemed to handle quite well and a good result could have been possible.

We decided to stay with the shorter third and fourth gears, but put back the original fifth and sixth gears for the race. We also decided to retain the shock changes that we had tried as the Porsche's handling during qualifying seemed quite good.

THE RACE

The race started on Sunday morning at 11:00am. It was sunny, but not too hot - a perfect day for a race. There were sixteen Daytona Prototypes and six GT cars in front of me on the grid. We took the green flag and headed off toward turn one. When we got there several Daytona Prototypes had gotten tangled up with each other at the exit of the corner. I was already on the inside entering the turn and I saw the accident so I dropped down to second gear and accelerated hard along the inside of the road between turns one and two. I managed to out run several GT cars to the entry to turn two. I sailed up the hill and through the esses in second place.

I quickly caught the class leading #57 Porsche and took a peak in several corners, finally getting him around the outside of the toe of the boot. When I got to the next corner the double yellows were out signifying a full course caution. I came across start finish in the lead much to the bewilderment of the Orbit crew.

When the race started again there was another big wreck between turns one and two. I got through cleanly again, but I had to lift at the entry to turn two to stay out of trouble and Bill Auberlen passed me for the lead going up the hill in his BMW. I remained in second with no pressure from behind for the rest of the stint, which lasted about forty-five minutes. I managed to turn a lot of 1:55's with the quickest being a 1:55.2, which turned out to be the fastest time posted in the race by a Porsche. I was relieved that the car was good considering how little time we had to work on fine tuning the set-up in practice.

Jay took over the driving at the pit stop and went very quick. He kept us in second position throughout his stint. Jay has without a doubt developed into the fastest guy I've ever driven with who has a day job.

Jay was replaced at the next stop by his father Joe, coincidentally on Father's Day. Joe did a great job and kept us up in second position.

When the next full course caution arrived I replaced Joe. It was about three hours into the race when I left the pits. As soon as the green flag dropped I felt something was wrong with the Porsche. I called the pits to ask if anyone had gotten hit, but they hadn't. It felt like the left rear suspension was damaged or possibly there was a tire problem. I stayed out for a while, but the harder I pushed the worse the car handled. With three hours left to run I decided it was better to get to the pits and get it checked out than to risk putting us out of the race. I pitted and the crew pulled the wheels off and looked at the suspension. They also checked the tires. They couldn't find anything. They sent me back out on the same tires. If I pushed hard enough I could get 1:56's out of the Porsche, and even a few 1:55's, but the car felt terrible. I can only speculate that we may have had a bad set of tires, although the Dunlops have been very consistent in their performance all season.

Once I emptied out the fuel tank Jay took over the controls. My extra pit stop had dropped us to fourth, but I had worked my way back to third, and that's where we were when Jay climbed in. He had the fourth place #66 Porsche right on his tail on the restart, but he quickly dispatched him by running about three to four seconds per lap quicker.

By the time I got back in Jay had built up a lead of about a minute. At this point there was no way we could catch the #21 BMW or the #30 Ferrari, which were running one-two in the GT class, several laps ahead of us. I just needed to stay in front of the #66 Porsche to return us to the podium. The pit stop was quick and uneventful, except that I didn't get one of my seat belts on and had to drive the whole stint without it.

I increased our lead to almost a minute and a half as the course finally stayed green for an entire stint. We still had to pit for a splash of fuel, but so did the #66 car. We took tires as well because we had plenty of time (I also had time to fasten all my seat belts). The #66 car took fuel only and when we both left the pits the lead was down to forty-three seconds, but there were only ten or fifteen minutes left in the race. I cruised the rest of the way and we made it back to the podium for the first time since the season opener at Daytona. The Orbit crew did a great job as did my co-drivers and we were all very happy with the result.

We head to Daytona next week for the Paul Revere 250 where we will try to put a stop to the #21 PTG BMW's four race win streak.