Tuesday, July 25, 2006

AJR finishes Seventh in GT2 at Portland; Katherine Legge finishes 13th at Edmonton

Robin Osborne

Alex Job Racing finished seventh at the night race this past weekend in Portland at round six of the American Le Mans Series. Robin Liddell would start the #23 Alex Job Racing/Bell Microproducts/Porsche 911 RSR from the second row in the GT2 classification. The Festival Turns lived up to there reputation causing an incident on the first turn of the race. Liddell was positioning himself for the first turn when a BMW would cross his bow forcing him into the back of the Ferrari. In the melee Liddell was shuffled to the back of the pack, but would work his way back to fifth place before turning the car over to Mike Rockenfeller. Rockenfeller proceeded to bring the #23 car up to third position. During the ladder part of his stint rubber bits deposited on the track accumulated on the Michelin tires affecting Rockefeller’s lap times. With less than 20-minutes remaining in the race the young German would pit for gas and tires trying to keep a top five finish. After returning to the track Rockenfeller would experience a strong vibration in the left rear and would return to the pits for another new tire sealing the team’s fate and a seventh place finish.

“We had another very difficult race,” said Holly Job, team owner. “We battled grip issues all through practice and then put in the fastest time during warm-up, thinking we would have a good car for the race. Robin’s first turn incident was bad luck with the congestion and stacking affect, which is typical when the GT2 cars start. The track was littered with rubber making fast lap times impossible. The Ferrari pitted out of sequence and had a big off and still was able to win – we could have used a little of that luck today.”

The bright spot of the weekend was the AJR crew winning the Klein Tool Pit Stop Challenge and receiving a $10,000 check for a job done “well” or in this case “fast.”

Commenting on the Edmonton Grand Prix Katherine Legge said, “It was a disappointing race for the Bell Micro – PKV Racing team. I had a couple of incidents out there that put us in a hole. Now, we just have to regroup and get the job done in San Jose.” Legge qualified 15th but dropped to 16th on the opening lap when she had to maneuver to avoid Bruno Junqueira, who spun in the first corner of the first lap and Cristiano da Matta, who went into the tire wall as cars tried to avoid Junqueira. Katherine moved back into 15th place when Junqueira pitted on the second lap, but nearly had her race end on the fifth lap. Entering the corner she slammed on the brakes to avoid Nicky Pastorelli who had spun into the tire barrier, Katherine damaged her own car when she came in contact with the stranded vehicle. Legge had one more incident on lap 34 when she slid into the tire barrier requiring her to make another pit stop to replace the damaged wing. She came back out on track in 15th place, 12 laps off the pace. Katherine would finish the race in 13th place.

Bell Micro Racing will host its next Relationship Sales Event at the San Jose Grand Prix on Sunday July 30th.