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Doran Racing
Theys Qualifies Eighth for Saturday's
Grand American Race at Mid-Ohio
LEXINGTON,
Ohio, Aug. 6 - Didier Theys of Scottsdale, Ariz. qualified
eighth
in the Daytona Prototype class and overall Friday afternoon
for Saturday's
Emco Gears Mid-Ohio Road Racing Classic Rolex series race
at the Mid-Ohio Sports
Car Course.
Behind
the wheel of the Doran-Lista DORAN JE4 Lexus #27 which
he'll share
with Benjamin Leuenberger of Bellach, Solothurn, Switzerland
in tomorrow's
250-mile race, Theys' fastest lap in the 15-minute qualifying
session was a 1:21.949
(99.193 mph). It was his fourth lap of eight he ran in
the session.
The
team was eighth-fastest in the first practice session
Friday with a
1:22.173 (98.923 mph) and sixth-fastest in the second
practice session with a
1:22.518 (98.509 mph).
"We
have some understeer," Theys said after qualifying.
"With new tires it is
OK, but once the tires get a little warm, it's back. I
did one fast lap and
then I ran into some traffic, so I slowed up because I
knew it wasn't going to
be my fastest lap. Then on the next lap the front grip
more or less just
went away.
"We
will go over the data and think about it overnight so
we can find a
solution and go faster tomorrow."
Leuenberger
took his first laps at Mid-Ohio during the promoter's
test day on
Thursday.
"I
got a lot of laps in yesterday so I could learn the track,"
he said. "It
is a very nice track. It's very tricky. There are a lot
of blind turns and a
lot of ups and downs. It's very interesting.
"Every
session we get better and better. I think we had some
bad luck with
traffic in qualifying. I think we have a good car for
the race tomorrow."
The
Michael Shank Racing team qualified fourth with its DORAN
JE4 Lexus. The
G&W Motorsports team was 11th with its DORAN JE4 BMW.
The Kodak EasyShare
team had contact with another car and qualified 16th with
its DORAN JE4 Pontiac.
The
race starts tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. It will be broadcast
on SPEED beginning
at 8 p.m. All times are Eastern.
The
CompuUSA team won the pole with a Riley Lexus.
For
more information see www.lista.com, www.listaintl.com,
www.doranracing.com, www.grandamerican.com and www.benleuenberger.ch.
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