GM factory driver Olly Gavin of Northamptonshire, England and his Banner Racing team mate Gunther Schaldach of Colorado, took a second consecutive podium finish in the #07 The Cool TV Camaro GT.R at Virginia International Raceway yesterday, solidifying second place in the GT points standings for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.<\/p>\n
It was a challenging race in differing weather conditions, and the Anglo-American finish just two seconds behind eventual GT winners Jordan Taylor\/Bill Lester\u2019s Camaro gave Team Chevy a well-deserved 1-2 in the ever-competitive class.\u00a0 While delighted for GM and the Leighton Reese run Banner Racing with the result, Olly rued the conditions and circumstances which prevented a first Grand-Am win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very, very wet at the start,\u201d noted the British driver, \u201cbut Gunther did a great job keeping it on the black stuff, especially since there was a mix up with the tires and the car wasn\u2019t handling as it should have been.\u00a0\u00a0 At the change-over we were in something like 10th place but, by the time I started my stint, the rain had stopped and the track was drying so I could start to claw back some places.<\/p>\n
\u201cGunther had made a call for slick tires, but it was a bit optimistic at the start of the stint and there were people flying off the track all over the place.\u00a0 It soon started drying more and more though and we managed to get past Bill Auberlen\u2019s BMW and a Porsche.\u00a0 We had enough fuel to go to the end without refuelling, and were pretty sure that our competitors would have to stop, so were looking good but there was a caution which definitely helped some people\u2019s strategy and weakened our chances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Struggling with chronic oversteer thanks to a missing hood (removed in order to fix non-functioning windscreen wipers at the start of the race), Olly continued to pressure Jordan Taylor for the lead but a muddy and greasy track, combined with bright sunshine and a dirty windscreen, contributed to a rare mistake from Olly and he slid off the track and lost 6 or 7 seconds in time.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be fair to Jordan,\u201d he continues, \u201che didn\u2019t make any mistakes even though I was pushing him hard, but I can only think about what might have happened if I hadn\u2019t gone wide.\u00a0 We survived a lot of mud, debris and general carnage, however, and I\u2019m pleased for Team Chevy that they got a 1-2.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oliver\u2019s next Grand Am race at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut, on May 30 will see the start of a hectic schedule of three races in three weekends, culminating in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France on June 11-12.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | Miller Communications<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GM factory driver Olly Gavin of Northamptonshire, England and his Banner Racing team mate Gunther Schaldach of Colorado, took a second consecutive podium finish in the #07 The Cool TV Camaro GT.R at Virginia International Raceway yesterday, solidifying second place in the GT points standings for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series. It was a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[20],"tags":[2578,3081,2891,3080,238,3077,3079,3078,3076],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12299,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12298\/revisions\/12299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}