The all-new Krohn-Barbour Racing team gave one of the world’s most glamorous sports car marques, Lamborghini, a promising competition debut in today’s timed qualifying for round two of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Krohn-Barbour Racing’s Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT, driven by sports car stars David Brabham and Peter Kox, goes to the start of Sunday’s 2-hour 45-minute race after running faultlessly in today’s (Saturday’s) timed track session and Friday’s non-competitive test runs. In long-distance sports car racing, reliability is often as important as pace.
Team manager Dick Barbour, successful since the late-1970s as both a sports car team owner and driver, said: “The Lamborghini is completely new, straight-out-of-the box, yet it’s given us no problems at all. That’s a great start, because the more uninterrupted track time we can get with the car, the more we can learn about how to set it up for optimum performance.”
The number five Lamborghini of Brabham and Kox lapped the twisting 2.25-mile Mid-Ohio track in 1min 21.695 sec, at an average speed of 99.5mph, putting it fifth among the GTS class runners. The class-leading Corvette turned a best time of 1min 18.622 sec.
Barbour said: “We’re not as fast as the class-leaders, but at this stage in the game we didn’t expect to be. The Corvette’s been racing for five years, the Lamborghini has raced only once [in an FIA GT race in Valencia, Spain, this April]. But every time we run the car we take another step forward.”
Krohn-Barbour Racing’s second Lamborghini race car, driven by team co-founder Tracy Krohn and Canadian Scott Maxwell, was unable to participate in today’s timed qualifying because of accident damage sustained Friday. Just ten minutes before the end of a 90-minute test session, with Krohn at the wheel, the number six Lamborghini ran wide through a turn, bumping along the curbs at the circuit’s edge; as Krohn steered the car back towards the ideal ‘racing line’, it was hit hard by a following Porsche 911 GT3. Both cars half-spun to a halt. The blow taken by the Lamborghini was severe enough to damage its right rear suspension and chassis. The car will miss tomorrow’s (Sunday’s) race and probably also next weekend’s (July 2-5) third round of the ALMS at Lime Rock, Connecticut.
Krohn, who escaped the impact unhurt, shrugged it off: “It’s disappointing, but this kind of thing happens in racing. A photographer who saw the collision said he knew it was the team owner in the car when I got out and started picking up all the pieces!”
On a more serious note, Krohn said later: “I’m quite new to racing, but I know what it takes to win in business, and racing’s no different. We’ve gathered the best people we can and we’ve made a serious commitment with this team. There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but we’re not afraid of that.”
Kox commented: “If we were slower than the class leaders but didn’t know how to improve the car, we’d have a problem. But we have lots of ideas how to go faster, which really encourages us.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race, Brabham said: “At the moment we’re just throwing what we can at the car [in suspension set-up] to see what it does. Every time we go out there we learn something. With a car this new, we’ll be happy to reach the finish.”
*SpeedArena
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