Intersport Fights Back At Road America

Photo by John Thawley Detroit — Intersport Racing fought back from a tough week in practice by starting 3rd in class and qualifying 11th overall for round 7 of the American Le Mans Series championship, the Generac 500 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

The early part of the week saw the team chasing down handling issues.  A tired nose and front fascia was causing severe bounce in the front end of the #37 Judd Powered Very Berry Exotics Creation. After replacing the front body work, the team was able to get back to dialing the car in.

With the diesel powered Audis dominating the front row, the #37 car started with Jon Field at the wheel behind a full compliment of LMP2 Porsches, Acuras and the lone Mazda powered Lola of B-K Motorsports. Never known as someone to back down from a challenge, Jon was ready to take them all to task.

The field exploded up the front straight as they took the green flag and charge into turn one. Anticipating the start perfectly, Jon took to the inside and emerged after one lap, running third overall. A first turn incident brought the field under yellow.

“Dad got an amazing start,” stated team owner and co-driver, Clint Field. “We’re not all that surprised though, the Judd power is tremendous out of the hole like that. But it was a great move. Even more impressive, he kept the car up at the front and was holding his own. The car looked great.”

Jon continued to mix it up with the Porsches of Ryan Briscoe and Guy Smith through the early stages of the race, showing the strength of the Creation CA06H-Judd LMP1 package.

At the 1 hour running mark, Jon brought the car in for fuel, tires and a driver change. Richard Berry got behind the wheel, but had difficulty restarting the car. He was soon underway, but only to return after a couple of laps with electrical problems.

With lightening on the radar, Berry got back underway after spending 15 minutes in the pits. Judd engineers confirmed that overheating caused the starter problem. With rain being reported at various points on the track, Richard pulled into the pits at the 1 hr. 21 minute mark for four tires, fuel and driver change. Clint Field took over.

At the 1 hr. 32 min. mark Clint Field returned to the pits. With the track now under a torrential down pour and displaying a full course yellow, Clint indicated the conditions are unmanageable with rain tires. Without rain tires, the team is forced to wait for the rain to subside.
At 1:47, Jon Field returned the #37 car to the race. Though the sky appeared to be clearing, the cars were still running behind the IMSA safety car. After a half hour of running,  Jon returned to the pits for fuel.

At 6:39 pm, (2 hrs. 30 min. running), the green flag came out.

At 6:51 pm (2 hrs. 42 min running),  the (#37 Creation/CA06H/Judd pulled back into the pits. This time the body work came off.  Though the team tried desperately to locate the problem, the early assumption was that the rain proved too much for the cars electrical system.

“The rain really took us out of it,” said Clint. “I was driving when the sky opened up and I immediately became a passenger. Since we don’t have a rain tire for the car, it would have been reckless of me to have stayed out. We opted to try and wait it out. Unfortunately, the electrical issue wasn’t going to cooperate. We’ll get the car back to the shop and go through the entire system. It’s one of those gremlins... but I’m confident the guys will track it down. This was a tough day.”

Following the race, the team announced they had ended their relationship with Kumho Tire.

“We’ve just never hit the right combination with the tire and the chassis,” Clint acknowledged. “But it wasn’t due to lack of effort. We are extremely grateful for the effort and dedication put forth by the guys at Kumho. They have bent over backwards working with us. It’s just a tough situation. We’ve had limited testing and in fairness to them, we’ve never really been able to establish a baseline setup on the car. Every weekend has been a different set-up combined with a different tire. We made headway... but we’re just at that point where we need to go in a different direction. We truly enjoyed the relationship and appreciate all that they did.”

The next round of the American Le Mans Series is the Mobil 1 presents Grand Prix of Mosport from Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. The race will start at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 26 and will be broadcast live on SPEED. American Le Mans Radio and IMSA's Live Timing and Scoring will be available at americanlemans.com.

The American Le Mans Series features 12 races in 2007, including the prestigious season-opening Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (March 17) and the 1,000-mile/10-hour Petit Le Mans. All other races are sprint endurance formats, ranging from an hour, 40 minutes at Long Beach to four hours at both Road America and the Series finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. All events are televised by CBS, NBC or SPEED.

Very Berry Exotics specializes in buying and selling some of the world's more exotics and hard to find automobiles. Not only do they sell cars already in the inventory, Very Berry Exotics will search for automobiles that are their customer's dream cars. Company owner Richard Berry founded Very Berry Exotics in 2004 and is himself a racer.

Based in Chicago, Klein Tools is a family-owned and operated company which has been in business since 1857, designing, developing, producing and marketing worldwide quality tools and protective equipment to meet the demanding needs of trade professionals who earn a living with their tools. The company, which initially grew as the premier plier manufacturer for the telecommunications and electrical industries, offers hand tools used in construction, electronics, mining, electrical, communications, aviation, security, audio/video and other fields.

Klein Tools, which employs approximately 1,000 people nationwide, began its motorsports association to support the marketing efforts of the company and its distributorships in key markets. Klein Tools’ motorsports sponsorship has also led to the development of products specifically designed for the motor racing industry including spark plug pliers and protective wheel gun covers now used by sports car and open wheel racing teams.

The American Le Mans Series is the premium brand of motorsport in North America, featuring high-tech sports cars from the most prestigious automobile manufacturers in the world. Its unique four classes of competition showcase exotic, open-top prototypes and sophisticated production-based GT cars, all competing on the track at the same time. The American Le Mans Series competes at the premier road racing tracks across North America and at selected temporary street circuits in major urban markets. With a 2007 television package that includes five network broadcasts on CBS and NBC and seven telecasts on SPEED, plus live broadcasts across Europe, the Series delivers a global marketing platform that is unmatched in motorsports. The Series, founded in 1999 by Georgia entrepreneur Don Panoz, represents a mirror image to the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s most famous and authentic automobile race. The American Le Mans Series features elite marques such as Audi, Porsche, Corvette, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Panoz, and premium brands such as Michelin, Yokohama, Kumho, Lowe’s, Shell and many others.