From Lime Rock Park, Connecticut

- A summary of the fifth round of the 2010 America Le Mans Series season.

Connecticut is a truly beautiful part of our country and the Lime Rock area reminded us of the French countryside as we arrived in Salisbury Thursday evening. The week end schedule was packed with both practice sessions and qualifying to take place on Friday and a short warm up then the race on Saturday. As the midpoint race of the season, it would be important for us to maximize our result here in order to stay in contention for the championship. We also knew that Black Swan Racing car #54 would be the one to watch, without discounting any of the other teams in this very competitive field where all cars end up within a second in qualifying.

Lime Rock Park is a unique facility. The shortest course of the season at 1.54 miles, it creates a very particular dynamic during the race as the speed differential of the four car classes creates constant overtaking situations. Yet, the course is narrow and passing is difficult. As a result, the number of racing incidents is always very high and this weekend would prove to be no different as we will soon explain.

This track is home ground for Andy Lally, our professional co-driver, who grew up in New York. That fact was comforting, although the car #54 team is based in Boston and equally calls Lime Rock home. The week end weather forecast called for heat, heavy rain and thunderstorms. This was our first visit to this track and our simulator practice didn’t allow us to experience the new chicanes recently added to the layout, but the track limited length and only 10 turns would help speed up our learning.