Vexed in PWC Sprint X at CoTA. Cheer up! Will not likely happen again
Getting beat in a race is never fun; Beating yourself before the start is unthinkable. Especially with Eric Curran on board for the GP of Texas Sprint X (see note below) and coming off a good finish in maiden run at St Pete.
Serious problems were only discovered at CoTA. Saturday was lost scrambling for a replacement block and an off-track workplace to completely rebuild the engine. In all due respect, from what we can gather over the course of events, the folks contracted by Callaway Competition USA were not on the “same page” with the veteran hands from Germany who guided the C7 GT3-R to the ADAC-GT championship.
Despite an all-out effort, the team qualified 12th on Sunday and was scored 19th after the car stopped one lap short of the finish.
The winners Sat and Sun were the # 61 Ferrari 488 GT3 of Toni Vilander (Fin) and Miguel Molina (Spain) for the R. Ferri team; followed Sun by the # 80 Mercedes AMG GT3 of Mike Skeen (USA) and Scott Heckert (USA) for the Lone Star Racing Team.
Given 20 years of excellence and the dedication of the Callaway organization, rest assured that a problem of this magnitude will not likely happen again.
Cheer up for a strong performance at Long Beach. Corvette fans will see the # 26 PWC C7 GT3-R with the # 3 & # 4 IMSA GTLM C7.R Corvettes of Pratt & Miller before the Indy Car feature at the biggest street race in Southern California, home to Callaway USA.
Sprint X note – Daniel Keilwitz and Eric Curran were to split 60 minutes of drive time in each race. New for 2018, after 35 minutes, all cars running must make a ten-minute pit stop. Each car has to meet a pit lane delta of a at least 75 seconds to change drivers and an additional 45 seconds in pit lane from the moment of entry to exit. The fastest lap in race one on Saturday sets the starting position for race two on Sunday, with the driver who started on Saturday to be the finisher on Sunday.
