DBRS9's St. Petersburg, Florida, 2006

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DBRS9's St. Petersburg, Florida, 2006

2006 SCCA SPEED World GT Championship Round 2

St. Petersburg, Florida, April 1st. On their first visit to the street circuit of St. Petersburg, Autosport Designs Racings two Aston Martin DBRS9s again had a mixed result.

What should have been an ideal circuit for these cars proved that you can never assume anything. Trying to set the cars up proved an arduous task leading to many hours of suspension and damper modifications that went on long into the night, but the tremendous understeer affecting both cars was finally cured.

The hard work was well worth it as both drivers; Johnny Mowlem #44 and Tom Papadopoulos #43 turned their fastest laps of the weekend during qualifying. Johnny qualified on the seventh row in the top half of the field and Tom qualified on the tenth row.

During the race Johnny experienced a flash fire on the warm up lap but was thankfully unhurt. Tom managed a great start and after ten laps was running 14th only to have someone turn in on him in the long 180 degree right hander leading onto the main straightaway, causing his car go airborne with the subsequent landing forcing him into retirement.

So, onwards and upwards, this race again represented more of a sorting session for the cars as this was only the cars second race. Barry Wagner crew chief said "We have decided to miss the next round of the series in Long Beach and instead run some testing and shake-down sessions to be prepared for the Mid Ohio race at the end of April. We thought that the car would be more competitive out of the box, this is evidently not the case and we need to do some non-race sorting".

Both drivers agree with this strategy.

2006 Speed GT World Challenge Calendar -