Team Report: Stevenson Motorsports Camaro Z/28.R on Pole at Lime Rock Park
Source: Sunday Group Management
Lakeville, Conn. (24 July 2015) – Stevenson Motorsports got a fast start to the Northeast Grand Prix race weekend at Lime Rock Park on Friday as driver Matt Bell won the TOTAL Pole Award with his fast lap of 57.654-seconds in the Stevenson Motorsports No. 9 Camaro Z/28.R.
The pole is the third of the season so far for Bell, who will open the race from behind the wheel before turning the controls over to co-driver Lawson Aschenbach.
The Stevenson Motorsports No. 6 Camaro Z/28.R entry of Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis will start directly behind Bell after Davis locked in third on the 41-car grid for the two-hour race for round six of the 2015 IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge championship.
“The guys did a great job today,” said Bell. “We looked over data and made sure we knew the direction we needed to go with our Camaro Z/28.R. The good thing is that we had one big problem to fix, but it was only one problem; everything else on the car was good and the team did a great job of honing in exactly what we needed. It wasn’t the perfect fix but obviously just what we needed. I don’t remember this track going this slick as quickly as it did today. It was a little difficult for us to chase that, and I knew I wanted to get out and do it in that one lap. After that first lap, everything starts to get loose on you. It was a good call to go out and get it done.”
The championship-leading No. 6 Camaro Z/28.R bounced back from a technical problem in the morning as the team put the advantages of being a two-car entry to good use to make up for the lost track time.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to get a long run in practice today,” said Davis. “That’s the longest run we’ve had all day. We made some improvements to our Stevenson Camaro Z/28.Rs, so I’m happy about that. It was a great run by Matt (Bell) to grab pole because they were struggling a bit earlier, as well. We’re happy to have the Stevenson Camaros back up front where they belong. Tomorrow will be a difficult race with the traffic. We’ll see what happens. Tomorrow is what counts. The guys have worked really hard, and I’m proud of them as always. We’re looking forward to it.”
“We are surprised to get the pole,” said team manager Mike Johnson. “The No. 6 car had a power steering problem this morning so we lost some track time. It is tough with these short race weekends, but we just played catch up. The pole is a nice recovery from our qualifying in the last two races. Lime Rock Park has been good in the past. This will be different with a two-hour race distance and racing with the ST class as well. So it will be different, but we will just keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
The Northeast Grand Prix is set to go green at 10:00 AM ET with LIVE coverage on IMSA.com.
FOX Sports 1 will televise the race on Sunday, August 2 at 12:00 PM ET.
