5/14/2006 Phoenix, AZ - After an amazing debut the week before at Laguna Seca, the Lock brothers and GOTO:Racing continued their Grand Am Cup campaign at Phoenix International Raceway, part of the Gainsco Grand Prix and GTLive Weekend. Unlike the smooth sailing of Monterey, the desert would serve up the team’s first severe challenges of the 2006 season.

The weekend started with the awarding of the Bernhiem “Improve Your Position” Award to drivers Brian and Chris Lock, who the week before had brought their Subaru Legacy from 22nd to 6th place in only 30 green laps. After setting the 6th fastest practice lap on the Phoenix roval, GOTO was confident that their drivers would again be delivering great performance.

However, qualifying brought an unwelcome foe: heat. Some mildly high engine temperatures in practice became much more serious as Brian tried to set a fast lap. Only a few laps into his Thursday afternoon qualify run, he reported water on his tires and windshield. Coolant was burping out of the overflow at a rate that was leaving the system empty after only 10 minutes of running. The high desert temperatures hovered around 104 degrees, so the crew thought it likely that cooling was inadequate. Steps were taken to direct more air to the radiator, and local shop VividRacing provided the team a new PWR radiator. But on Friday, Chris’ practice session saw the problem worsen, ending the run after only a few minutes. “I have never run here before,” said Chris after his session, “but there aren’t very many turns here. Only Turn 1 is critical for good lap times, so think I came get up to speed fast during the race. Read More...

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Congratuations !!!! Hey Chris I saw the race, Dorsey and his sidekick were a little slow acknowledging you but they really had no choice you kept moving up. Great Job!! I think it was Dorsey who said that your pit crew were just friends helping on a weekend and they did the best that the could but that's what hurt you more than anything else. That being said, I noticed that your tire changer was holding lug nuts in his hand instead of having them afixed to the new rim, never seen that before, is that something you guys are going to address? Great racing put that Subaru Legacy on the podium.

 

Great job guys!!!

 

Yes, we are going to address crew and stops now. Every one of the guys has years of mechnical experience, but the have only limited pit experience. We had the equipment for doing a quicker stop, but we had not tested with the glue yet, and we never do in a race what we have not done in practice. Now that the car is sorted enough to start running well, we are going to concentrate on pitting and strategy, and that means the crew will be properly drilled in stops.

Of course you have probably read the write up, so you know there were other circumstances at work in that stop as well. Expect to see a well rehearsed stop at Mid Ohio.

 

Cool roll those boys up Chris and get on that podium.