September 8, 2001

Race Notes From Laguna Seca

Johnny finished in 6th position after starting the race today in 23rd position. The team needed to change a motor after a cam shaft problem in the qualifying effort.

Johnny’s comments were “WOW, what a day. I was patient at the beginning and Brian and I were both working our way through the field. I made it through the mid-race caution then just took off. I got mean and got by a bunch of guys. I then backed off a bit because I didn’t want to use my car up. We made our fuel stop and for some reason all the fuel wouldn’t come out of the can. It seems to have been some sort of a vapor lock situation. That cost us a stop and go penalty. Somewhere around lap 30 (of the 56 lap event) we had a yellow flag and everyone bunched up. We came over the hill after the caution and something in the motor let go. The car sounded horrible. I was able to get around one car but that was all I could do. A little later there was a different sound coming from under the hood and pieces of carbon came flying. We lost the right front tire which shredded the carbon fiber hood…so back to the pits I came for the third time in the race. One new tire (BTW, a GREAT change by the crew) and one caution flag later, I was 11th at the restart. I looked behind me and nobody was there, so I decided that I had nothing to lose. I just turned it on! I drove by three cars and two more went off by themselves, so I picked up five places on the last lap.“

“Not a bad thing to end the day considering the direction we were going. We are 27 points behind Paul for the drivers championship and 13 points ahead of Brian. We will be ready to take the longshot at Paul in Houston.”

The motor problem turned out to be a loss of cylinder #8. The spark plug blew out of the cylinder head. This condition caused a loss of over 200hp. Johnny’s skillful driving, “blocking”, and a few well timed caution flags, still allowed him to be competitive in an wounded car.

The race was won by Justin Bell, followed by Brian Simo, Lou Gigilotti, Leighton Reese, Randy Ruhlman, then Johnny. Paul struggled with an early race inside wheel mount problem which put him several laps down, he finished 13th. Scott Pruett, racing the #5 Jaguar developed a flat tire and went off course in turn 2, he finished in 15th position.