After a promising start to the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship which has brought the team two podiums in as many races SRT Motorsports will travel to the Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase on streets of Long Beach hoping for a repeat of 2013.
Last season, when the California street track event formed part of the American Le Mans Series, the team won both its first class pole position and its maiden podium finish when pole sitters Dominik Farnbacher and Marc Goossens finished third in the #91 Viper GTS-R.
A year on Farnbacher and Goossens arrive at Long Beach already having claimed one podium result, alongside their endurance racing co-driver Ryan Hunter-Reay, with third at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The #93 team of Jonathan Bomarito, Kuno Wittmer and Rob Bell went one better to finish second at last month’s 12 Hours of Sebring. As the season leaves both Florida and the endurance format for the time being the team is trimmed back to Bomarito and Wittmer for this weekend’s race which will feature only the Prototype and GT Le Mans classes of the TUDOR Championship grid.
“We’ve had a very good start to the season with podiums for both cars in Daytona and Sebring,” said Farnbacher. “The Viper GTS-R is solid and our results are strong in a very competitive class. Long Beach was a good one for us last year and we feel encouraged heading back to the street circuit. We definitely know how to set-up a car at Long Beach because we had the pole position last year. After a third and second place so far this year, we badly want to reach the top step of the podium at Long Beach.”
The SRT Motorsports team will contest the 100-minute race, facing opposition from Ferrari, Porsche and Corvette teams in the GTLM class.
“It’s pretty bumpy,” Bomarito described the track. “Street courses are typically a lot of 90-degree corners, relatively slow speed, but Long Beach actually incorporated some pretty long straightaways, some medium-to-higher speed corners and then you have the famous, really slow-speed hairpin leading on to the big, front straightaway. It’s a fun track. To be quick there, the car has to deal with the bumps, have good power down on the low-speed corner and still have some stability in the medium speed stuff.”
The race will be streamed live on IMSA.com, the green flag scheduled for 11:10pm UK time on Saturday night.
