ALMS, Champ Car Double Already On Road America’s Mind For 2008

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — The prospect of an American Le Mans Series/Champ Car World Series doubleheader was enough to draw the largest crowd to Road America since the turn of the century.
Parking lots, campgrounds and hillsides were noticeably fuller than in recent years, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put the Sunday crowd at 33,000. Attendance for Saturday’s twilight four-hour ALMS race may have been even higher.
Track President George Bruggenthies said it was the most successful weekend at the gate in his 10 years with the track. “(Sunday) was a good day, a little lighter than I thought, but I’m happy with it,” he said.
Bruggenthies said he hopes to feature the same twin bill on the 2008 Road America schedule, a move that was endorsed by ALMS President Scott Atherton and Champ Car President Steve Johnson.
“It’s a very expensive proposition for a promoter to host two major series on a weekend, but there is no doubt that the fans get the best value in all of racing when there is a doubleheader,” Johnson said.
“I think the crowds speak for themselves,” Atherton noted. “It’s a classic case of one and one makes three.”

• A second-place finish for Dan Clarke might help redeem his actions from the previous Champ Car race at San Jose. Clarke rammed pole winner Justin Wilson out of the California street race before crashing on his own under caution a few laps later.
The R-SPORTS team ran a prominent “KEEP BACK!” warning on the rear wing of Wilson’s car during the Road America weekend.
Clarke took a surprise pole position at Elkhart Lake in 2006 and qualified eighth this year. He matched his career-best Champ Car finish while wearing a flat-black helmet rather than his normal red-and-white paint scheme.
“I guess the helmet fits because I’m the black sheep of the series after last week,” Clarke said. “Now that we finally have a podium this season, I have a feeling that luck will really be on our side.”
Clarke’s result may have come at the expense of teammate Robert Doornbos’s championship hopes. The Team Minardi USA drivers had a “misunderstanding” negotiating turn five on the 25th lap, with Doornbos hitting the back of Clarke’s car at a fair rate of speed. Doornbos finished 14th and is now 37 points behind Sebastien Bourdais.
“I gave him room, and he got on the push to pass and then dived in front of me, and hit the brakes sooner than normal,” Doornbos said. “My teammate clearly doesn’t know how to overtake. It was a stupid result for the team, and I’ve now lost serious ground in the championship. Ridiculous!”
“I don’t know what happened,” Clarke countered. “I had passed him, I went back onto the conventional line, and I just felt an impact from behind.”

• Oriol Servia earned the bonus point for making the biggest improvement in position on race day. The Catalonian moved from 14th to fourth in the Forsythe Championship Racing entry.
“We had problems in qualifying so we started at the back, but we were able to make a lot of on-track passes and we also managed to turn one of the fastest laps of the race,” Servia said. “So we’ve shown that we have a good car for the road courses, and I think that we are going to be very strong and fighting for victories in Europe.”

• While Servia gained confidence with his Road America result, Paul Tracy was unhappier than ever with the feel of his Panoz DP01.
Legendary engineer Morris Nunn was on hand to observe and help out the Forsythe team, but he admitted that he had little knowledge of the new-for-2007 Champ Car spec package.
“I was asked to come and have a look,” Nunn said. “Obviously, it’s very difficult to walk in on a race weekend and contribute right away.”
Nunn recently relocated to California after living in Florida for more than 10 years.
Although he won at Cleveland, Tracy has struggled to get to grips with the Panoz this year and ranks ninth in the standings.

• The Conquest Racing entry appeared at Road America with a new green-and-white paint job and a new sponsor, Belgian graphics firm Grafiprint.
Jan Heylen drove to a season-best sixth-place finish.
“The team did an incredible job with our fuel strategy,” Heylen said. “Don Bricker, the team engineer, was able to tell me exactly what to do and what was needed so we could end up with the perfect amount of fuel. The entire team seemed to work well today and we seem to have a good, cohesive team going to Zolder.”

• Bruno Junqueira finished ninth for Dale Coyne Racing but felt it should have been much higher. The Brazilian qualified fifth but was judged to have jumped the start, costing him a drive-through penalty in a race that ran without a full-course caution after lap three.
“I don’t know why they penalized me and not Sebastien (Bourdais) because when Sebastien went, I went,” Junqueira explained. “Everybody has been jumping the starts all over, but the first guy to be penalized is me. I’m very disappointed because I love this track and I could have been on the podium.”