Road Atlanta IMSA GT3 Cup - round1 April 15-17 2005

Page 3 - The Race

Start of the race was not bad, pretty clean. I was worried there would be a lot of carnage in the 1st turn. I passed a few cars on the outside of T1 and a few more as people spun out ahead of me each lap. Lots of cars were going off. Gennady Soykher had passed me in T4 before the esses, but got very loose exiting turn 7 right in front of me. I didn't lift as I correctly guessed he would spin to the right, and he held up a bunch of cars giving me a few laps with nobody behind me. Then unfortunately we had a few full course yellow laps due to more accidents. I think due to the one below between Lawson and Russell.
Following Mitch Bender, Tom Pank goes agricultural.
Following Mitch Bender, with Lawson coming up fast in the #33 car.
Lawson got by me, Bender still ahead.

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Finally I passed Mitch Bender on the long straight after a good run out of Turn 7. I had moved up from 19th to about 11th at this point.
Keith is catching up after being punted by Policastro in the last turn. Here is a link to his in car video of him being punted.

Following William Paul Camusi, maybe in a practice session?

The next lap after passing Bender, I was punted by him turning into T7, ending my race and the life of my passenger's door and rear fender. Driver apologized a little, Not enough. It was a terrible move which Tom Pank has on tape, I hope to post it if I get a copy. Here is Keith's video, you can barely see me get hit then spin out.

Mitchell Bender's car. I think he got away cheap.


My car with smashed fender and door. Luckily suspension and chassis were fine, a mere flesh wound.

Out of our 8 cars, 2 went undamaged, Ricardo Imery (Formula car driver from South America, ended up 2nd, awesome driver was ahead of the carnage) and Paul Orwicz who avoided it too and ended up with a nice clean 5th place. If I could have held my position I might have ended up 8th just due to attrition, but probably 9th as Keith Alexander probably would have passed me on his way back up front.

Lawson's car was fixed so made the race from the back and passed me pretty quickly as seen above. But he had a collision in T10 A/B with another of our cars, Russell Smith. Russell was a little ahead of me, and the collision took Lawson's door right off (!) and crushed the rear fender. He drove a few laps with no door but was black flagged. Our team swapped another door (Russels' I think as his radiator broke) in the pits and taped it on and sent him out losing two laps, but even with bent suspension he was able to get fastest race lap trying to catch up, ending up 22nd.

Russel's car is a mint 2005 GT3 cup car, just painted blue for this race.

Lawson's doorless car. This car has since been completely fixed up and looked great for the Mid Ohio race (not for long!).
We will hope for better luck in Ohio!!!

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