Pirelli World Challenge at Lime Rock Park

For the third installment of the Pirelli World Challenge series, we landed in the beautiful and green Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Lime Rock Park is a fast and tricky, but short race track, which guarantees a lot of laps and a lot of action.

Qualifying in the GTS-X was tricky due to the large and competitive field. Jeff Burton qualified in 26th in his Audi R8 LMS GT4, with a time of 55.856, only 1.4 seconds of the lead.

After chasing the ideal set up for this track during practice 1 and 2, Vesko Kozarov in his Nissan 370Z qualified on the second row with the 4th fastest time of 57.400, just 0.236 seconds off the lead. Paul Terry in his Nissan 370Z qualified on the 5th row with the 9th fastest time of 58.561, 1.397 seconds behind the fastest car.

On Saturday it was time to race for the Nissan 370Z Touring Cars. Vesko Kozarov set a fast time early on in the race to get a P3 starting position for Race 2. He then ended up having a great fight with the BMW M235i of Robert Nimkoff and the Hyundai Genesis of Jeff Ricca. He passed both cars on lap 26 and was able to hold on to a 3rd place finish!
Paul Terry had a difficult start to the race after getting caught up in a first corner incident with one of the BMWs. He was able to continue after falling to the back of the field and put in some great lap times, often matching the leaders in the race, and qualified P6 for Race 2.

Race 2 for the Touring Cars did not go as planned with a difficult start for both cars. Vesko was too quick to start, causing him to be sent to the back. From there he made a great recovery to finish P7.
Paul Terry was tagged in the second corner on lap 3 in a close fight with the BMWs, incurring front end damage and the loss of a couple spots. Despite pushing hard he was unable to overcome the loss of downforce and he slowly drifted to the back of the field.

Due to local noise laws there was no racing on Sunday. The racing resumed on Monday when it was time to race for the GTS cars. Jeff Burton in his Audi R8 LMS GT4 started on row 13 in a field of 32 cars and had a great start to the race. He made up 10 places on the first lap after avoiding a first corner incident. After a mishap at the pit stop and being pushed off the track by the leader of the field, he fell back to 26th place. He continued with a solid drive and putting in a P25 qualifying time for Race 2 and recovering to 24th.
Race 2 was dominated by a big crash in the opening lap, causing the field to run under a yellow flag for 14 laps, whilst the track was being cleaned. After the safety car pulled in, Jeff had a good restart, climbing up to P21. After his pitstop he kept his car on the track, drove a clean race finished in a solid 18th position.

We’ll see you next time out at Portland International Raceway, July 13th – 15th. You can watch the racing live on http://world-challenge.com and we’ll post weekend updates on our Instagram channel @rearden_racing