Acura Sports Car Teams Already Geared for the Northeast Grand Prix after Le Mans Success
The news is that Brabham, Le Mans winner, will go for the Lime Rock Win for the Local Acura Team. This weekend, the Acura Assault is on its way to Connecticut at Lime Rock Park for the sixth American Le Mans Series racing event of the year 2007.
The Highcroft Racing of Danbury, CT, a local racing organization, leads the Acura three-car effort for the Northeast Grand Prix that is expected for Saturday, July 7, at 3in the afternoon. The even is said to happen on the widely known 1.54-mile, eight-turn road circuit that commemorates its 50th year of competition in 2007.
In its first year as a factory-supported Acura operation, Highcroft Racing comes to Lime Rock with an exceptional driving lineup. This includes recent winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, champ David Brabham. He constitutes the line up along with former Le Mans winner and Formula One star Stefan Johansson. The team owner, Duncan Dayton, has been fielding sports car teams for the past five years with moderate success.
In 2007 though, Dayton made Danny Sullivan, former Indy 500 winner, as a senior advisor and a strong driver lineup to successfully compete in one of the world’s toughest sports car circuits, American Le Mans Series. On the one hand, Brabham scored his first Le Mans title in 14 tries two weeks ago. Johansson, already a past Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring champion, was behind the wheels for a number of Ferrari cars. In addition, he also drove McLaren in F1 and is known to be a great team leader.
Also expected to compete in the Highcroft Racing effort at Lime Rock for Acura will be the Andretti Green team. The drivers will be Bryan Herta as well as Marino Franchitti. The latter is the younger brother of Dario Franchitti, who is an Indy 500 winner. Other teams also include the Lowe’s Fernandez squad that brings along Mexican stars Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz at the major control seats.
Bagging first, second as well as fourth at the 12 Hours of Sebring, the Acura sports car teams–after leading off the 2007 ALMS campaign with an impressive debut of first—have had to win against the Penske Porsches for the LPM2 class victory as well as the overall win in the streets at St. Petersburg, Long Beach and Houston.
Sadly, all of the three races resulted into no other wins for Acura. This was with regards to the initial sports car season. Still, the Porsches as well as the more-powerful Audi cars are very much aware of the fact that the Acura teams are once again ready for another Victory Lane celebration. Herta lost by less than half a second at Houston.
Another Acura winner’s circle celebration in the LMP2 class could come as soon as this Saturday at 3 p.m. in the Northeast Grand Prix.
In truth, all three Acura squads have been quite ready for the three street events. Their failure to land the victory lane spots has been due to minimal problems that all teams–Andretti Green Racing, Lowe’s Fernandez Racing as well as Highcroft Racing—are expected to take care of soon.
In the renowned Sebring contest, Herta, Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti won in Acura’s initial race this year in the No. 26 XM Satellite Radio Acura ARX-01a. In addition, Dario also bagged the overall pole position at Long Beach. He led for over an hour in the street classic after that.
Brabham scored Acura’s second straight overall pole by taking the No. 9 Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-01a to the top spot in Houston qualifying. A small pit stop problem cost Brabham and his teammate Stefan Johansson a shot at the class title. Fernandez and Diaz nearly come home with top prize at St. Petersburg.
Now, the three Acura lineups take on the tight Lime Rock, set to secure a second win.