LAKEVILLE, CT – It’s fair to say that Lime Rock Park was not kind to the Roadshagger team. The hot and muggy weather set the stage for what would be an uncomfortable and ultimately disappointing race.
Lime Rock is a short (1.5 mile) and fast circuit and the TCR cars lap it in about 55 seconds. Such a short lap makes strategy calls particularly challenging if you fall behind early, because it’s very easy to go down a lap or two. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to the Roadshagger team.
Ernstone started the race in 10th and ran with the pack until he and three other TCR cars got hung up behind a particularly hard to pass GS car. Then things went from bad to worse as the tires wore more than expected, possibly an after effect of some damage cause by contact early in the race.
By the time Morley got in the car at halfway he was two laps down to the leader and trying desperately to conserve his tires and stretch them to the end. The strategy would not pay off however and Morley spent a frustrating 60 minutes driving around in circles, just trying to stay out of the way of the GS cars.
Morley nursed the car home to finish in 11th place. The only silver lining of the weekend was that the championship leading #37 Honda had engine issues and finished in 12th. Their misfortune allowed Ernstone and Morley to get one point closer to them in the championship.
The bad news is that the #98 Hyundai who was third in points won the race and now holds a 10-point lead over the #37 and a 14-point lead over the #61 Simply Vegas Audi with 4 races remaining in the season.
A lot can happen in four races though and the Roadshagger team is dead set on grabbing at least two victories. These victories will be necessary if the championship comes down to a tie breaker, now that both the #98 and the #37 have two apiece.
There is pretty much a 0% chance the Roadshagger machine will get any airtime on the NBCSN broadcast, but we’d like to take this opportunity to direct your attention to our newly re-designed Schedule and Results page.
The new design makes it easy to find our past results, see what time our races are streaming live on IMSA.tv and also see when the NBCSN broadcasts are. We hope you’ll throw it on your phone’s home screen and follow along as we fight for the championship over the next four rounds.
On to Road America on August 3rd!
Gavin Ernstone's Road Shagger Racing 