F2000 Championship Series: Chris Miller Leads Summit Point Practice by Six-Tenths
Summit Point, WV - July 17, 2009
Championship leader Chris Miller led today's practice F2000 session, turning a blazingly fast lap of 1:10.898, which is more than a second and a half under the current F2000 track record of 1:12.623. Miller turned multiple laps faster than the second place time of 1:11.519, set by Remy Audette. Almost the entire field went out on sticker Hoosier tires for the session and many drivers capitalized on lap times by drafting other cars down the long front straight.
Miller was a full second and a half under the current track record.
“It was a great session and the car was working nicely,” said Miller. “Halfway through the session we made some small changes with the wings and then went out and turned even faster laps. Hopefully this doesn't turn into a drafting game during qualifying; I don't think any of the front-runners will let anyone get a tow off them down the front straight.”
Benjamin Searcy, who has already won two races this year, was third quick for Z-Sports. “This weekend is already going a lot better than Watkins Glen,” said Searcy, who had a big shunt during qualifying that sidelined him for the first race at the Glen. “I like this track a lot as it suits my driving style. We had a massive low speed push yesterday but were able to get rid of it with some sway bar changes.”
Searcy was third in the morning session.
Yesterday's fast man Tim Minor was fourth quick with Rob Nicholas rounding out the top five for K-Fast Autosport in his #89 Van Diemen. “We're about half a second off where we should be,” commented Nicholas. “So now we're going to make some changes for tomorrow, we have a lot of experience here and it's surprising to see guys like Audette, Searcy and Miller faster than us already, it's a huge testament to their skill level and shows how fast they can learn a tricky track like this. None of them had seen this place until yesterday.”
Len Amato, driving the #33 Van Diemen, makes his first F2000 appearance since 2007. 20 year F2000 veteran Greg Maschinot is engineering the Amato Construction entry.
Victor Carbone suffered a broken drive axle on the #23 Alegra Motorsports Van Diemen, limiting him to just two laps while Dan Denison spun on his outlap and couldn't get his car refired.
The ADSA/Wright entries of Blake Teeter and Robert Wright, along with GTP's Tom Fatur, will have new developmental rear wings on their Van Diemens this weekend. The new profile wing sits a full six inches lower than the stock part, and features a new lower-element as well as a new lower wing assembly.
Shortly after opening practice the skies opened, rain poured steadily and at times was very heavy. The rain tapered off right before the scheduled start of the second practice session, but the track was still very wet with considerable standing water in many places, and halfway through the session the skies opened yet again. Most teams elected not to even take the chance as the rest of the forecast for the weekend appears to be dry.
JDC MotorSports pulled out their backup car with Hoosier rains for Chris Miller, who was able to gain more valuable track time on the wet track. No one else followed suit, making Miller the only car to go out in the afternoon session. Team owner John Church commented: “We never get a chance to test in the wet so this was a valuable opportunity to do that and get some more track time here at Summit.”
Action gets underway tomorrow with a 10:00am qualifying followed by a 2:50pm start for the first 22-lap race of the weekend. Sunday follows a similar format with a 10:25am qualifying and 2:30pm green flag. Live updates on www.F2000ChampionshipSeries.com
www.F2000ChampionshipSeries.com
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