NASCAR STAR FACES EXOTIC FOREIGN COMPETITION THIS WEEKEND AS SECOND LAMBORGHINI MAKES US RACE DEBUT
NASCAR stars usually battle bumper-to-bumper and fender-to-fender in deep-throated American sport sedans – but when NASCAR Nextel Cup frontrunner and 2004 Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt, Jr. hits the track this weekend, his competition will have an exotically foreign sound.
Earnhardt, Jr will make a rare appearance in round four of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) at Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, California on Friday through Sunday at the wheel of a Chevrolet Corvette in the popular GTS (Grand Touring Sport) class for cars that are production-based but highly modified – and that’s where the Krohn-Barbour Racing team will race for the first time with two Lamborghini Murciélago R-GTs, just three weeks after giving the glamorous Italian marque its US sports car racing debut with a single car.
At the tight and challenging Sonoma track, the new Krohn-Barbour Racing team will field a Lamborghini for Tracy Krohn (Houston, Texas) and Scott Maxwell (Toronto, Canada), alongside the car of Australian David Brabham (Maidenhead, England) and Peter Kox (Eindhoven, Holland) which made its debut in round two of the ALMS at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course three weeks ago. Many sports car fans instantly acclaimed the Lamborghini as the most beautiful car in the ALMS.
On its US debut, the Lamborghini of Brabham and Kox challenged for third place in the GTS-class all the way to the finish line, missing the glory of a podium position by less than seven-tenths of a second after two hours and 45 minutes of racing. The Lamborghini again challenged for third place at Lime Rock, Connecticut, two weeks ago, when the track surface was made greasy by rain, but the car subsequently lost an hour in the pits after Kox was blamelessly side-swiped by a rival Saleen S7R.
A collision, too, limited the all-new Krohn-Barbour Racing team to running just one car at Mid-Ohio and Lime Rock. The second Lamborghini of Krohn and Maxwell should also have entered these races, but in Friday testing at Mid-Ohio it was heavily damaged when hit by a Porsche 911 GT3. The Braselton, Georgia-based team has since rebuilt the car around a new chassis.
Driver turned team manager Dick Barbour said: “We’re very excited about having our new team up to full strength. For the first time, fans will be able to see not just one Lamborghini racing, but two. The car’s gone that little bit faster every time it’s hit the track, and I’m sure we’ll make more progress this weekend. At the same time, we do have to be realistic – this weekend will be the 50th ALMS race that the Corvettes have taken part in, and it’s only the Lamborghini’s third. We still have plenty of work to do to get the car fully up to speed.”
