Law Hustles Motorsport Technology Group Porsche to Top Ten Finish at Lime Rock
Darren Law teamed with Andrew Davis to take the #19 Motorsport Technology Group Porsche 997 to an 8th place finish in today’s Grand-Am Koni Challenge Grand Sport class race at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. The Lime Rock race is the second round of the 2008 Koni Challenge series, held four months after the season opening Fresh from Florida 200 at Daytona in late January. Unlike the Daytona race, the Lime Rock enduro was held with split classes; the ST class race was held on Saturday, leaving the Grand Sport race to be a Memorial Day event.
The weekend started out less than strongly for the Law / Davis / MTG combination as the #19 had engine trouble and missed the second session completely to do an engine change. After the MTG team worked on the #19 MAH 720 Property Management, TPC Racing Porsche 997 between sessions, the weekend began to come together. During the third practice session Law vaulted up the time sheets, running a 58.844 second lap of the 1.5 mile road course to set 7th quick time, and then backed up his lap with a 58.905 second lap in qualifying to put the Porsche 5th on the grid in the 34-car field. The competitiveness of the field was clearly apparent as the top ten cars were separated by less 0.5 seconds in qualifying.
Law took the early start of the scheduled 2.5-hour race at 9:45 am, and immediately began to move forward in the field and by lap four had moved up to second place following a well timed move past fellow Porsche driver Lonnie Pechnick in the #26 CMAX Unitech Racing 997. By lap 17, Law had closed the gap to leader Bryan Ortiz in the #97 Turner Motorsports BMW M3 to less than one second.
Law took the lead briefly as he got by the #97 on lap 44, but slight contact caused a loss of momentum and he was then passed by Kris Wilson in the #25 CMAX car. Law pitted on lap 59 for fuel and tires but rejoined the race further down the field. Law continued to work forward following the stop, and was able to keep the #19 in 6th before pitting during a full course yellow on lap 73 for fuel tires and a driver change.
Davis took over the #19 and drove the remainder of the 140-lap race to bring the Motorsport Technology Group 997 home in 8th and secured himself and Law a hard fought Memorial Day top ten finish.
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Darren Law – Driver #19 Motorsport Technology Group Porsche 997
"The car was really good. I didn’t have any problems getting to the front at the start and had a solid run in 2nd for over an hour. For the most part, we kept things clean and were just trying to stay near the front and waiting to see how the race would play out. We dropped a few positions after our stop at the first hour, and as always strategy is critical; we then pitted on the second of two yellows and had to came from the back of the field. Andrew did a great job in his stint and even though we both would have wanted to finish a little better, we’re pretty happy with a top ten The Motorsport Technology Group guys did a terrific job dealing with the engine problem earlier in the weekend and the car was good to drive."
Up Next
Next race for the Koni Challenge Series will be held at Mosport June 13-14 and will be a combined Grand Sport and Street Tuner race. For more information on the Lime Rock event log onto grand-am.com.
