This Weekend at Lime Rock Park with Patrick Dempsey and Joe Foster
Dempsey and Foster set for second ALMS P2 start in No. 27 GNC Beverages/Trina Solar/Motegi Racing/Dempsey Racing Lola-Judd in Saturday’s American Le Mans Northeast Grand PrixDempsey Racing, and lead team drivers Patrick Dempsey and Joe Foster, will make its second race start this season with the team’s new ALMS P2 program this weekend in the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park where Dempsey and Foster will co-drive the No. 27 GNC Beverages/Trina Solar/Motegi Racing/Dempsey Racing Lola-Judd, July 6 – 7.
The American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix is a two-hour, 45-minute race scheduled for 3 p.m. EDT, this Saturday, July 7, on the 1.5-mile, 10-turn Lime Rock Park circuit. Live coverage is available Saturday starting at 2:45 p.m. EDT/11:45 a.m. PDT on ESPN3, and ESPN2 will air the race in same-day “virtual live” coverage at 4 p.m. EDT/1 p.m. PDT.
The Lime Rock Northeast Grand Prix follows Dempsey Racing’s successful “test race” debut of the new Lola-Judd in May’s ALMS event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Dempsey, Foster and guest driver Jonny Cocker ran competitively and finished the six hour endurance race there and look forward to an even better performance at Lime Rock. The Mazda Raceway event was Dempsey’s first race of any kind in a prototype.
“I felt good at Mazda Raceway, the pace wasn’t too bad and I stayed out of trouble for the most part,” Dempsey said. “I had a good drive and I knew what I needed to work on physically after that, in those cars you really have to work your next so much more. I was talking to Scott Pruett and he was giving us a good rundown on what his exercise regime was, so that really helped, and then racing so much now too has been great. There’s no substitute for actually racing, it makes you so much stronger.”
The Dempsey Racing P2 team heads to Lime Rock after a tight schedule of four GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series races in five weeks that wrapped up last Saturday, July 1, at Watkins Glen International. Dempsey and Foster co-drove the No. 40 VISIT FLORIDA Mazda RX-8 GT in all four races in addition to testing the P2 car in an ALMS test at Virginia International Raceway in mid-June. Such an expanded, multiple series program has been part of Dempsey Racing’s plans since the team was established nearly a decade ago.
“This has been a long-term project for many years,” Dempsey said. “I am really happy to see where we are going, I am really happy to see what I am learning to be a true professional race car driver, and this is all about building on that. It’s all about the process right now for us. There’s a lot of heart and soul here and that is so important in winning a 24-hour event, in doing well in any sports car racing endurance event. The results are in the little details right now so I am really proud of the guys and the run they have been on the last four weeks and, really, since our ALMS debut at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in May.”
A challenge on the short but relatively quick 1.5-mile Lime Rock track will be dealing with traffic while also racing the P2 Lola to its full potential.
“You have to be aggressive enough to stay out of trouble, you can’t hold back, because I think if you hold back you start to make mistakes,” Dempsey said. “You have just got to be really on it, really focused, and you have to see so much farther ahead in the P2 than you do in the GT car. You have to make quick decisions, and when you make it, that’s it. You just have to look down the road really but it is nice coming from GT racing because you have a better understanding of what those guys are going through. You want to be respectful to them and drive cleanly around them.”
This year’s partial P2 schedule is the first step in a long-term ALMS and international sports car racing program for Dempsey Racing that includes fulltime competition in future seasons and a return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans as soon as 2013.
Dempsey Racing’s move into the P2 division follows its full-season entry this year in the ALMS PC category in a partnership with Henri Richard, Duncan Ende and Silicon Tech Racing (STR). The Silicon Tech/Dempsey Racing No. 25 Future Electronics/HP/STANDD/Pounce Consulting/Racer’s Roast Oreca FLM09 is also competing at Lime Rock this weekend.
The American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park begins with practice and qualifying on Friday. Race-day Saturday starts with a 30-minute warm-up at 10 a.m. EDT with the green flag scheduled to drop at 3:05 p.m. EDT later that day.
Editor’s Note: Dempsey, Foster and the No. 27 GNC Beverages/Trina Solar/Motegi Racing/Dempsey Racing Lola-Judd, which has a GNC Beverages primary livery this weekend, will be featured tomorrow in a Friday morning photo shoot on the Lime Rock front-straight start/finish line at 8 a.m. EDT. All series and event accredited media are invited to participate.
About Dempsey RacingA fulltime and year-round enterprise, Dempsey Racing is a professional sports car auto racing team based in the greater Atlanta area in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Owned by actor/driver Patrick Dempsey, the team races in support of the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing (www.dempseycenter.org) in Dempsey’s hometown of Lewiston, Maine, and the Team Seattle Guild (www.teamseattle.com) to benefit the Seattle Children’s Hospital Heart Center (www.seattlechildrens.org).
