CHIPPING AWAY

The Corvette C8.R fought a fierce battle at IMSA's Northeast Grand Prix.

- RICHARD PRINCE

Fresh off a convincing victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park two weeks prior, Corvette Racing traveled to beautiful Lime Rock Park for the FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix presented by Liqui Moly on July 22. Lime Rock is the shortest track on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule, and that, along with its narrow width in places, makes it one of the most challenging. "This is a very intense and physical race, usually," said driver Antonio Garcia. "It's so hard to pass, and if we are stuck behind GTDs, especially early, then it can be a long and frustrating day. This race is all about track position, so we need to arrive at the track with everything right on our Corvette so we can start fine-tuning immediately. That will be the easiest and best way to start toward the front and hopefully stay there."

Corvette Racing has a long and successful history at Lime Rock, with a total of six victories on the 1.474-mile, seven-turn course. The first came in 2004 when Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin started from pole, set the fastest race lap time, and beat their teammates Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell to the checkered flag. Corvette's most recent win at Lime Rock was recorded in 2021, by none other than this year's full-season drivers Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor.

As expected, Friday afternoon's qualifying session was the scene of a fierce battle that saw all five competitors in the GTD PRO class break the existing lap record of 51.079 seconds. Also as expected, all five GTD PRO entries were extremely close to one another, with Ross Gunn in the pole-winning Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 at 50.593 seconds and Patrick Pilet in the fifth place Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R only 0.481 second behind with a time of 51.074 seconds. For the Corvette Racing team, Antonio Garcia drove the C8.R to third position in qualifying with a time of 50.897 seconds (104.257 mph).