“It was unfortunate” was Chris Dyson's matter of fact summing up of the end Dyson Racing's Utah Grand Prix at Miller Motorsports Park.
The team and their Mazda-engined Lola coupe had run promisingly near the front of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) field until Guy Smith was forced to pull the car off the track with 35 minutes of the 2-hour, 45-minute race left to run.
“There was no prior warning,” he said. “We always look forward to the challenge of this track and it is a shame we were not able to improve on our good showing from last year.”
Smith had begun what would be the car's final stint of the race fifteen laps earlier, the Briton receiving the car from Chris Dyson in third place. However, the premature finish dropped the New York State based team to sixth place in the combined Prototype class, even the reduced number of points helping the team and their drivers strengthen their grip on third place in the overall standings.
Dyson Racing's focus now shifts to the next event, at Lime Rock Park in two weeks – the team's home track in the series, their Poughkeepsie base less than an hour away. It is also a track where the team have had success, the team winning the P2 class at the track last year – the first win for the team using their current car and engine combination.
“We will go back to the shop and look through the data and see what happened,” Chris Dyson outlines the first steps from Utah to Conneticut. “We were the quickest car on track for the majority of the race weekend's practice sessions and we were in play for a good finish.”
“Lime Rock is a touchstone for Dyson Racing. From Rob [Dyson] running his 1974 Datsun there to our celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary in professional racing at the track in 2008, to our win last year, Lime Rock personifies the long-term commitment and passion for racing that has been our core from day one.”
