f1600-thursday-notebook

Valet Car Updates

Championship hopeful Bill Valet said in the pre-race press release that his No. 83 Swift/Ford was completely rebuilt following a rough weekend at Mid-Ohio.  But, following a crash at Watkins Glen in qualifying, there was more damage than the team thought.

“We thought we found everything wrong with the car when we arrived at Mid Ohio, but clearly there was more hurt than we thought. The car just didn't handle right,” explained Valet.

“We took the car out for a national race a few weeks after the Mid Ohio round, and the car was even worse!  When we got back to the shop, we found that the belly pan was literally flapping in the wind.  It had delaminated and sheared some of the rivets,” he continued.

“With the long break we've been able to strip the car down and reassemble the entire thing, so I'll be showing up at Lime Rock with a brand new car. No excuses!”

Local Experts

Mike Scanlan has more than a thousand laps around Lime Rock, and was most recently lapping the Connecticut road course just two weeks ago. More impressively, he said that he has 40 racing hours and 4,000 miles on his Honda engine and “the motor is still right there.”

Scanlan added: “Hopefully the short schedule will favor locals at Lime Rock, but looking at the entry list there will be a lot of locals entered and a couple of new faces. This Series just keeps getting better and better. Lime Rock appears to be a quick learn, but the more that I run it, the more I realize how many subtle aspects there are to it.”

He added that momentum is key around the seven-turn road course, so he doesn’t see one motor having an advantage.

Points!

If Championship points leader Tim Kautz remains consistent to his average finish, which is worth 43.5 points, and with drops figured in, he winds up with 348 points at season finale.

Bill Valet has averaged 37.5 points per race in 2011, giving him exactly 300 points with drops by the end of the season if he were to continue on average.