Ben Keating muscled the No. 33 ViperExchange.com/Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R to a fourth-place qualifying run Saturday for today's Oak Tree Grand Prix at Virginia International Raceway.
Round 8 of 10 races on the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship GT Daytona (GTD) schedule, the Oak Tree Grand Prix is an all-GT showcase for the GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GTD divisions. The race can be seen live on FOX Sports 1, Sunday, August 23 at 1 p.m. EDT.
Keating, co-driver Jeroen Bleekemolen and the ViperExchange.com/Riley Motorsports team have been dealing with the weight of some recent rules restrictions for the Dodge Viper GT3-R but never let up for a second in today’s 15-minute qualifying session.
“I feel like qualifying was really good and that I was punching above my weight,” Keating said. “I think I qualified better than we will be able to race. We qualified fourth but I think we have a sixth or seventh place car racing. We can do a decent lap time in qualifying, even though it is over a half second slow, but I think we have a car that is 9/10ths off on race pace. We'll see how it goes, but I don't hold any illusion that we have a chance of winning this weekend.”
Keating will start the Oak Tree Grand Prix and hand off to Bleekemolen, the team’s usual closer.
“Ben did a great job in qualifying,” Bleekemolen said. “The track was a lot slower than it was before, everybody was slower, but Ben still managed to still get a great lap time out of the car. He did the best he could and hopefully we can stay there. It's not going to be easy in the race tomorrow with the race pace we have, but we’ll try, we will fight.”
Keating cautiously gave up on what likely would have been his fastest qualifying lap after an attention-getting moment on the fast 3.27-mile circuit.
“On my fast lap going down the straightaway, going through Oak Tree, I got a little squirrely and picked up a vibration,” Keating said. “I got really concerned that I had a tire going down or something. It's scary going into that last corner at 160 mph or so and having an issue, so I pitted. I asked the guys to check the tires because I was worried about it, but it looks like maybe it was rubber pickup or something.”
Race-day Sunday begins with a 20-minute warm-up at 8:35 a.m. EDT before the start of the Oak Tree Grand Prix at 1:05 p.m. EDT.
