TESTING CONTINENTALS AT VIR

LEAPIN’ LIZARDS OVER HERE! AGAIN!

Flying Lizards’ Seth Neiman and crew were on hand for the Rolex Series’ Continental Tire test at VIRginia International Raceway Tuesday and Wednesday.

Well, Neiman and company were on the track and pit-side Tuesday, huddling in the garage Wednesday as an early morning fog slowly turned to mist and then to slight sprinkles which turned to rain by mid-morning.

Still, Neiman put in some serious time Tuesday on the 3.27-mile, 17-turn VIR road course, often emerging with a smile on his face as the Daytona Prototype became more familiar to him – posting admirable times, too.

Driving a Porsche Flat-Six Riley Daytona Prototype which took Brumos Racing’s David Donohue, Darren Law, Buddy Rice and Antonio Garcia to victory in the 2009 Rolex 24 At Daytona, some say Neiman has begun a familiarization process that’ll lead to his competing in the Jan. 29-30. season-opening endurance race.

For his part, Neiman says, “I’m just having some fun.”

Oh, those drivers!

BRUMOS CALLING

“To get a call from Hurley Haywood, asking if I’d consider driving for Brumos, almost bowled me over,” Andrew Davis, most recently of Stevenson Motorsports, said as he undertook a Tuesday afternoon stroll of the VIR paddock.

“How could someone not want the Brumos name on their racing résumé?”

Davis got the call after Haywood and Brumos Racing decided “to get closer to its roots and run a 911-based car for the 2011 Rolex Sports Car Series,” Haywood said when reached by telephone Tuesday because neither he nor the new Brumos car were on hand for the VIR test.

“We’ll start testing it as soon as we can get the car,” Haywood said. “Our first official test will be at Homestead-Miami Speedway (Dec. 1-2).”

Davis will be paired with Leh Keen, former co-driver of James Gue in Dempsey Racing’s No. 41 Mazda RX-8. The pair finished fifth in the year-end 2009 Rolex Series GT standings, 32 points out of first.

Keen captured the 2009 Rolex Series GT championship co-driving a Porsche GT3 with Dirk Werner, the team shortly thereafter splintering in the wake of Federal fraud allegations made against team principal Greg Loles.

“Plainly, I believe we’ve got the driver talent to do well in our return to GT,” Haywood said, noting the team is in the final stages of choosing the team manager.

“We’re looking to win races and a championship in our first year in GT and we’re carefully putting together the pieces that will facilitate that,” Haywood said.

Davis said he’s leaving the Stevenson team with mixed emotions, noting the friendships he’s forged with team members and, especially, that of Johnny Stevenson and Robin Liddell.

“I put Mr. Stevenson in the loop as soon as I got the call from Hurley,” Davis said, adding that Stevenson was supportive and understanding.

“I’ve gotten really close to Robin. We’re good friends and I’m going to miss not seeing him as often but going to Brumos is huge and it just wasn’t an opportunity to miss.”

IT’S A GAS FOR KAISER

Ross Kaiser, here as a result of the 2011 Sunoco Rolex 24 At Daytona Challenge, which put the driver into a Rolex 24 At Daytona competing Daytona Prototype as part of his British Radical championship winner’s package, was hard at work on the 3.27-mile VIR track acclimating himself to the No. 77 Doran Racing Ford Dallara.

Most folks on hand for the test thought VIR’s slightly overcast sky and 70-degree temperatures to be acceptably cool, whereas Kaiser compared it to a “hot, sunny day in England.”

Kaiser put in most of the Doran’s available seat time (though Brad Jaeger captured second – more on that later), settling into a 1:46 lap of the 17-turn, terrain-changing course by day’s end.

He was one tired British race car driver, too.

“This car’s a bit heavier and harder to turn than my Radical,” Kaiser said. “Also, I’m used to being in an open cockpit car and the air flow helps keep me cooler. I’m in need of some better airflow through my helmet.”

Already on the way by Tuesday afternoon was the means by which to provide such, though with Wednesday’s cooler-still temperatures and doubtful sight of the sun, extra cooling may not be necessary, just yet.

GAINING PERSPECTIVE

“I tell you, seeing a young mother and father put their faith and weeks-old baby in the hands of doctors for a heart operation kind of puts life into perspective,” Michael Gué said Tuesday.

The team manager of Dempsey Racing’s No. 41 Mazda RX-8, Gué and son James Gué, who also happens to drive that RX-8, had just returned from a visit to Seattle Children’s Hospital – for whom the team help raise funds – to witness the procedure as well as speak with all involved.

“The parents are usually first-time parents and to look into their eyes and simultaneously see hope and almost sheer desperation really strike at the heart,” Mike Gué said.

“The doctors are so incredibly professional that what they undertake seems almost routine, yet a little life hung precariously in the balance. It really was quite incredible.”

Nonetheless, racing helps pay the bills – for the Gué family as well as those Seattle Children’s Hospital babies – and attention inevitably returns to finding a compatible, competent driver to fill the RX-8 seat Leh Keen vacated.

“Fortunately, this year we’re not lacking for applicants,” Mike Gué said. “We’ve yet to work it down to a short list but we’ll start on that after this (VIR) test.”

The team likely isn’t hurting for candidates for a couple of reasons, among which would be a new team driver’s increased appeal among the fairer sex, albeit as a result of the appeal generated by yet another team driver and sometimes Hollywood star, Patrick Dempsey.

Imagine the pressure a potential driver recruit would get from his significant other to “sign now, dammit!” so that she and perhaps a cadre of her best girlfriends could possibly hang, even if but for a moment, with Dr. McDreamy. Heck, the economic benefits probably are good, too – one being able to sign a driver for less money just to regularly hang in the same driver’s lounge as Dempsey, certainly saving the team $20,000 or $30,000 worth of salary, don’t you think?

Perhaps more importantly, though admittedly a stretch by comparison, is the team’s demonstrated ability to win, as it did at the Crown Royal 200 at Watkins Glen International, or the ability to post an additional three 2010 podiums: a third at Homestead; second at Lime Rock Park; and, another third-place in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

Nah, surely such pales in comparison.

THE MEISTER, JAEGER

Brad Jaeger, who with Memo Gidley co-driving, had eight 2009 starts and 13 starts in 2008 in Doran’s No. 77 Ford Dallara, will apparently be seeing action in the No. 77 for the Jan 29-30 Rolex 24 At Daytona and the June 3-4 Sahlen’s Six hours of The Glen.

Jaeger was the car at the VIR test and was in the seat late Tuesday when the Doran crew alternately hung a couple of new Grand-endplate designs on the car.

“Nah, we won’t be able to tell any difference here,” team owner, manager, chief bottle washer and sometimes truck driver Kevin Doran said while the test was underway of the extra hoped-for downforce the plates might produce. “You’ll really not see much here because this really isn’t the best environment to actually measure whatever is produced. Grand-am asked us to put ‘em and we complied.”

Also complying with the endplate test was Michael Shank Racing’s No. 60 Crown Royal Special Reserve Ford Riley with Jon “Hairless” Pew at the wheel who insisted the most telling bottom-line result for him and the new endplates was his not wrecking the car.

Helping Pew were newly installed paddle shifters on the steering wheel centerline’s left and right horizontal sides.

“They’re nice, especially helpful when you formerly had to shift going into a corner,” Pew said.

Pew explained that a number of corners are encountered where one must shift a gear but the throw of which will result in net loss of time.

“There are some corners where you have to downshift earlier just so you have the right pull going through or coming out of a corner. With the paddle shifter, I can keep both hands on the wheel and shift at the optimum moment.

Plus, there’s the added advantage of preventing a mechanical over-rev, because the paddle’s electronics won’t activate the change unless the engine revs and selected gear are in an acceptable range.

“I like it. The paddle shifter’s a good idea that’ll ultimately save a team some money in the gearbox.”

And, maybe, time on the track.

“I just look at Scott Pruett and know if he can do it, that maybe there’s hope I can do it too,” Pew’s co-driver Ozz Negri said of his potential for driving when he’s 50-years old.

LET THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

Some people along VIR’s pit road suggest a certain U.S. Government-associated car manufacturer had taken the Federal Health Care (ObamaCare) methodology to heart, saying the carmaker’s racing arm issued an “or-else” ultimatum to a couple or three active and, now, possibly former series teams.

The unconfirmed story goes something like this: “You, Mr. Two-Car-Team-Owner, must rid yourself of one car – even though you’re making money with that gentleman driver in it, or we’ll cut off your funding for the one with the professionals in the car.”

“And you, you silly Mr. Other-Team-Owner, we don’t care that you overcame tremendous odds and performed admirably on what didn’t even come close to a shoestring budget, you must rid yourself of that car or we won’t be playing in your sandbox at all, either.”

Left confusing this poor old writer is that Mr. O-T-O then wouldn’t have a car, any car whatsoever needing funds of any sort if he doesn’t have a car to fund in the first place. Right?

Is this another case of how diabolical government minds function? Then again, maybe it’s another 2012 apocalypse warning sign? Perhaps both.

(Post Script: A GM Racing representative called this author Friday, Oct. 22, 2010, to convey that GM Racing wasn’t they who weren’t named above.)

I ONLY WANT TO DRIVE

Paul Edwards, with whom a reporter briefly crossed paths last Sunday in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jones International Airport , (learned only today) was returning from a one-day familiarization of the Spirit of Daytona No. 90 Coyote-Chevrolet at south-Georgia’s Roebling Road.

Yes, it appears Buddy Rice is out of the No. 90 seat he shared with a continuing Antonio Garcia.

This is the time of the year when yours truly and his brethren must start putting two and two together so as to have any hope of totaling three inasmuch as no one is really saying much of anything for fear of anti free-marketers entering the picture and telling everyone they must purchase racing insurance.

Huh?

Yep.

By the way, Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 10 SunTrust Dallara has traded its Ford for a Chevrolet, too.

DEUTSCHE TOURENWAGEN MASTERS

Talking about hot topics . . .

A certain longtime BMW-associated driver can’t wait for 2012 (yes, yes, but they’ll start testing in 2012) and another longtime BMW-associated driver can’t wait for 2012 (yes, yes, but they’ll start forming teams over here in 2012 – or 2010 if this guy has his way).

This is a deal which started brewing early in 2009 and one which has had more players, is slightly more involved and, perhaps, convoluted than appears at present.

But in revealing it in grand fashion is Grand-Am’s David Spitzer, who’s done a credible job of raising the ire of at least two of NASCAR’s highest-level but closed-mouth types and to which another high-level NASCAR type retorted . . . um, well, actually, it’d be best not to repeat it herein, what with family members of all ages tuning in.

But he retorted a good one. Um, supposedly, of course.

Lastly, does anyone perchance remember David Bowie’s “Young American? What about you, John?

Later,

DC