Audette Paces Morning Practice
Lakeville, CT – Championship leader Remy Audette continued where he left off at Mosport, on the top of the timing screens, pacing a morning practice at Lime Rock Park with a lap of 50.3 seconds around the seven-turn road course.
Audette, driving the No. 21 Audette Racing Van Diemen, has a sizable championship lead on four wins over Chris Livengood, and won his first F2000 race ever at Lime Rock in 2009.
Livengood, meanwhile was second quick of ahead of Kyle Connery, who missed the checkered flag and will be penalized two grid positions. Connery, who has won four races this season, is also serving a penalty for an incident at Mosport and will sit out the first race.
Matt McDonough, the 2006 F2000 Champion, continued development driving on the new Radon F2000 chassis, although Blake Teeter is still expected to race the car. McDonough was fourth quick for GTP Motorsports.
As for the Radon chassis, two were expected at Lime Rock but only the No. 77 is present in the paddock.
Dr. Nathan Ulrich of Radon Sport commented: “We are about one day shy of getting Peter's (Peter Gonzalez) car finished. Two key components were delayed, we just got them yesterday morning. He'll be testing next week and run a couple of regional races before Watkins Glen.”
Gonzalez thus will drive the No. 70 Van Diemen usually driven by Tom Fatur.
There should be four Radons at Watkins Glen, including Bob Wright in the third car, and a fourth car with a “mystery driver.”
Tim Minor in the Ski Motorsports No. 88 rounded out the top five and was the fastest Masters Class driver.
Robert La Rocca was noticeably absent from the top of the time sheets in his No. 10 RFR for HP-Tech Motorsport, having mechanical gremlins during the session.
Friday continues with another practice at 1:55 p.m., qualifying for race one at 3:00 p.m. and qualifying for race two at 5:05. Saturday September 17 is race day at Lime Rock, with a large crowd expected. An early-morning 9:00 a.m. warm-up is followed by race one at 10:25 and race two at 4:00 p.m. Live updates will be available on F2000Series.com
Practice 1 Results:
Pos No. Name Best Tm Best Spd In Lap Diff Gap 1 21 Remy Audette 50.362 109.368 21 - - 2 37 Chris Livengood 50.464 109.147 18 +0.102 +0.102 3 91 Kyle Connery 50.465 109.145 14 +0.103 +0.001 4 77 Matt McDonough 50.534 108.996 9 +0.172 +0.069 5 88 Tim Minor/M 51.013 107.972 19 +0.651 +0.479 6 06 Tim Paul 51.070 107.852 18 +0.708 +0.057 7 72 Thomas Schwietz/M 51.649 106.643 12 +1.287 +0.579 8 26 Angel Benitez 52.663 104.590 16 +2.301 +1.014 9 70 Peter Gonzalez 52.913 104.095 17 +2.551 +0.250 10 61 Tom Drake/M 53.243 103.450 17 +2.881 +0.330 11 14 Fred Bross/M 53.281 103.376 22 +2.919 +0.038 12 90 Robert Wright/M 53.369 103.206 18 +3.007 +0.088 13 35 Eric Presbrey 53.695 102.579 12 +3.333 +0.326 14 27 Craig Clawson/M 53.830 102.322 10 +3.468 +0.135 15 31 Brendan Puderbach 53.960 102.076 13 +3.598 +0.130 16 47 Chris Monteleone 54.057 101.892 15 +3.695 +0.097 17 15 Aaron Pettipas 54.160 101.699 24 +3.798 +0.103 18 22 Giancarlo Potolicchio/M 54.389 101.270 13 +4.027 +0.229 19 2 Nathan Morcom 54.818 100.478 23 +4.456 +0.429 20 10 Robert La Rocca 55.656 98.965 4 +5.294 +0.838 21 83 Charles Finelli/M 55.896 98.540 6 +5.534 +0.240 22 94 Al Guibord,Sr./M 56.135 98.121 15 +5.773 +0.239 23 89 Jim Hanrahan/M -.--- - 0 - - 24 97 Chris Gumprecht -.--- - 0 - -