VICI RACING

Lead Photographer: Jim Sykes


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Acura Sports Car Challenge of Mid Ohio - Live reporting from the VICI Racing pits

	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	Test Session	Practice & Qualifying	Acura Sports Car Challenge

HUGHES TELEMATICS VICI RACING KUMHO TIRE PORSCHE 911 GT3 RSR

5:10 PM Nicky is being debriefed and he's satisfied with the hour on track, “It was quite hot out there and the track is technical but easy to learn, it was busy with lots of cars out there so traffic is going to be a feature of the race. We seem have plenty of power and the new engine is very driveable.”

5:05 PM The session is over and Nicky is out of the car. The final quarter of an hour saw the 25 year old back on track after 1 hr 16 mins, posting a consistent 1:25.893, 1:25.438 and a 1:25.463 before diving back in with 7 mins remaining (1 hr 23 mins). Three more laps and the Dutchman rounded out his afternoon’s work with a 1:25.462.

4:50 PM With the focus now turning toward set-up Nicky was lapping consistently in the mid- to low-1.25s, with a 1:25.160 after 57 mins, followed by a 1:25.673, a 1:25.600 and a 1:25.172. On that last lap the GT2 Aston Martin beached in the gravel, stopping the session after 1 hr 3 mins of running.

4:20 PM With systems check out of the way and the new engine being carefully run in, Nicky, who was undertaking all the sessions duties, was soon in the 1:28s, and posting a 1:28.812 after 44 minutes of the session, just a minute before pulling in for an 8 minute stop.

3:30 PM The 90 minute long test session will get underway at 3:35 PM. Meanwhile temperatures were rising steadily. A few clouds around midday had led to thoughts that a shower might occur (and we certainly had been greeted on arrival yesterday evening by a brief rainstorm of monsoon like proportions) but they had given way to a clear blue sky. Nicky is strapped into the car, Crew Chief Alex Zaric is in a last minute briefing with the Dutchman.

1:00 PM Hughes Network Systems, LLC, has joined us as a key strategic partner to the team. Hughes Network Systems is the global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments, small businesses, and consumers. HughesNet® encompasses all broadband solutions and managed services from Hughes, bridging the best of satellite and terrestrial technologies. Its broadband satellite products are based on global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU standards organizations, including IPoS/DVB-S2, RSM-A and GMR-1. To date, Hughes has shipped more than 1.5 million systems to customers in over 100 countries.

11:00 AM The Pastorelli brothers are hanging out at the trailer. Neither has driven here before, but they drove the 2.258-mile, 13-turn circuit in a golf cart yesterday to get some idea of its nature. “It seems quite a technical circuit, and pretty smooth too,” says Nicky, who reiterates that this is only a view gained ‘from the cart’. Nicky is also driving a number of races in the Dutch Supercar Challenge this year, a very different beast from the RSR. “The car has a VW Passat body with a GM engine, its much heavier, less technical but with lots of power. They’re not easy to drive, but they’re lots of fun,” he adds. Back to Mid Ohio and he says: “Hopefully we will have a dry race. It’s going to be hot in the cockpit this weekend. It was hot at Utah and blistering at our recent Sebring test, so we are expecting another hot race.”

10:45 AM As the heat of the sun beats down under a cloudless sky, the VICI Racing paddock area is a hive of activity and with each race our infrastructure expands and the team grows. For the first time the team benefits from the new Porsche engine ‘step’ which will see the 911 GT3 RSR getting a new four-liter engine with a further improved drivability. The car’s weight remains unchanged at 1200 kg but the 6-cylinder engine increases its capacity from 3795cc to 3996cc thanks to a revised stroke. With just one of the new engines available, the #5 car won’t be racing this weekend.

10:30 AM “We’ve got a new gearbox which just arrived this morning and has had to be fitted,” says Technician Jody Coenen as midday approaches. “We have set up the car to Roland’s requirements and it passed through tech ok earlier. We just have two drivers to concentrate on this weekend, and as they both know each other very well this makes the focus much easier.”

9:50 AM The team’s highly experienced Team Manager Tim Bumps is one of the most focused individuals in the ALMS paddock. He started coming here in 1983, winning with Andretti in 1996, and with his unrivalled attention to detail, he can recall everyone he worked with at Mid Ohio, a real who’s who, stars of the calibre of Paul Tracy, Emerson Fittipaldi and Rick Mears. Tim reveals too that much of the two-month break has been spent preparing for the team’s expansion of activities in 2009, and here he is ably assisted by new Team Coordinator James Lang.

8:30 AM The proceedings at Mid Ohio, the sixth round of the 2008 American Le Mans Series, started very early this morning for VICI Racing with a 6:00AM departure from the team’s hotel with a 45 minute drive to the circuit, which nestles in rural Ohio, 60 miles north of Columbus and 70 miles south of Cleveland, and where American traditions runs at their deepest. The Mid Ohio Sports Car Course is always a demanding test of driver and machine and on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, the ALMS series is visiting for its seventh time. A long event starts now.

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