Krohn Racing will start the inaugural Grand-Am of the Americas from twelfth on the grid, following a day spent learning the circuit on Thursday’s Test day.
Team owner and driver Tracy Krohn piloted the #76 Daytona Prototype during qualifying, taking it to the outside of the sixth row.
“The car wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as the previous session I drove in.” commented Krohn “There was a little too much oversteer about midway through qualifying and I just didn’t catch it quick enough. I had more adjustment on the front bar but I thought maybe the tires were going to settle in. I thought maybe I was overdriving it a bit. Finally I made an adjustment to the front bar and the car drove better then. I wish I had another lap. Of course, everyone always wishes they had another lap! We made some changes prior to qualifying and I think we’ll probably go back to what we had and I think we’ll have a better car.”
“I think we start behind the eight-ball a little bit because we haven’t done any development on the car in a few years.” he continued. “All that being said, there’s a lot that happens during the race and I think the car will be very good in the race. I think it’s very good on tires as well so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Krohn will be joined by Nic Jonsson for the first Grand-Am race at the new 3.4-mile Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
“As usual, the crew did a great job to prepare the car.” said Jonsson. “We’ve had no mechanical issues, which I think is impressive after not running the car hardly in the last two years to come here and run mechanically sound. Unfortunately, I think the new generation car is a little faster than the car we had a few years ago. The car is not bad, it’s just the fine tuning of the car is just not there with the Gen 3 car. We are struggling a little bit with pace but it’s a long race tomorrow. We just need to keep plugging away and I think we can continue to improve the car another half a second or so. If we can do that it will improve and the race pace will not be as fast as practice or qualifying. We may have a car that can run in the Top 7 or 8, hopefully. If we can do that we should be pretty pleased.”
“Tracy’s done a very good job here today both in practice and qualifying. He qualified 12th and that’s very respectable running a car that’s not as quick as the other guys. He’s very close to some of the guys in front of him. Driving internationally against much tougher competition has definitely elevated his game a few notches. That’s great to see.”
