Alex Job Racing Ready for Second Half at Miller...Gonzalez, Leitzinger lead GTC points
Alex
Job Racing (AJR) is heading to round four of the
American Le Mans Series (ALMS) presented by Tequila Patron race to be
run at Miller Motorsports Park on July 11. Job has his three cars
in the top three positions in the GTC points standings.The series is coming off of their yearly month-and-a-half Le Mans break. Juan Gonzalez and Butch Leitzinger lead the GTC points with 68, teammates Romeo Kapudija and Bill Sweedler are second with 48, Luis Diaz and Ricardo Gonzalez are third with 42. The team is ready for second half of the season.
Miller Motorsports Park, located outside of Salt Lake City, is one of the longest courses on the schedule, utilizing the 3.05-mile, 14-turn layout. With temperatures predicted to be in the 90's, concentration around this long layout will be a key element to team success.
Juan Gonzalez and Butch Leitzinger, in their No. 81 Mission Foods/Alex Job Racing/Porsche GT3 911 Cup head to Miller with the overall GTC points lead. The duo got there by winning the season-opening Sebring 12-hour race, followed by a sprint win at Long Beach and a third place at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The pair will be looking to keep the consistent running going this weekend.
"This will be my first visit to Miller," Juan Gonzalez said. "Butch and the team have raced there many times, so I will study the data and get a lot of coaching from Butch and Luis to help me get to know the circuit. We are leading the points and have gotten there by employing good strategy and making no mistakes on the track. We will take that same approach this weekend."
"Miller
is one of my
favorites," Leitzinger said. "Although it seems flat, just about
every corner has some elevation change to it. There are several
challenging, high speed corners. The layout affords many
opportunities to set up a pass. It is a very well laid out
circuit."Bill Sweedler and Romeo Kapudija are still looking for their first win in the No. 23 Battery Tender/Tequila Patron/Alex Job Racing/Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entry. The duo will be looking to put their speed together with good strategy and stand on top of the podium with the 23 team.
"I only raced at Miller once and it was not a very good race," Kapudija said. "My favorite part of the track is Turn One because it's a fast corner in which you carry all that speed through Turns Two and Three. Therefore, you have to be quick through One in order to carry the speed through the next couple of turns. A good handling car is always a must, but straight line speed will be very important since the track has long straights and sweeping corners. There are very few reference points at Miller Motor Sports Park and precision driving will be crucial. Heat will also play a major factor and I am hopeful my sauna workout regiments will be helpful."
"Miller is like racing on the moon," Sweedler said. "You are surrounded by the Rocky Mountains and vast amounts of grey gravel and dust. The track is super fast, smooth, and flowing, with no real reference points to focus on.
The fans have always been big supporters of our series. It is one of my favorite tracks to race on. My favorite turn at Miller has to be the last turn coming on to the main straight. Seriously, Miller has many awesome parts of the track, but the last turn, which appears very simple, is a lot faster than it looks due to the banking.
Carry too much speed
and you run out of track,
consequently lifting the throttle, which in turn ruins what could have
been an amazing lap. Therefore, this turn gets my vote and most
important. It can mean as much as a second hitting it perfectly
in the GTC cars. The AJR team has done a superb job getting the
car set-up at every race. Between Alex, Greg (Fordahl) and the
rest of our crew they get it right every time. I'm sure that
Romeo and I will have a contender with the Battery Tender/Patron
Tequila car. I look forward to getting back to racing after the
Le Mans break."Luis Diaz and Ricardo Gonzalez are ready for the second half of the season in their No. 80 Car Amigo/Alex Job Racing/Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car. Diaz was a pole sitter and winner at Miller last year in the P2 class. He will be looking to impart that track wisdom to teammate Gonzalez as well as have a break through weekend.
"It's great to be back at Miller Motorsports Park," Diaz said. "This is one of my favorite tracks. It is very fast and it has a very challenging layout. I have great memories from this track, last year we won here and we are very optimistic that this year we can score our first victory this weekend.
This whole season we've had very limited track time, both Ricardo and I have had to adapt to the GTC cars always during the race weekends with no real testing time. Here we are going to get to test for a few days and finally get to work on the car and on our driving in a more relaxed environment. We've been very close to the front before, but with this additional track time we are going to become an important threat for victories."
"I had never been to Miller Motorsports Park before," Ricardo Gonzalez said. "I did a lot of laps on the simulator and that definitely helped to learn the layout. This morning I went out for the first time and it felt great. We got up to speed right away and although we still have a lot of work to do we are already one of the top cars out there. I'm sure after this whole week of testing that by the time the race comes around we'll be able to fight, not only for pole position, but also for the win."
Alex Job, team owner, took his team out early putting them through a rigorous test schedule which started today, Tuesday.
"We wanted to come to Miller early so we get the guys a lot of laps around this tough track," Job said. "I also wanted to get them back into race mode after having almost 90-days off. We have all three cars at the top of the points page and we want to keep that momentum going. We are coming to a stretch of races at great tracks and we took the time off to go through the cars and make sure we were ready for the schedule to come."
Round four of the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patron will be run at Miller Motorsports Park on July 11. The race will be televised live on the SPEED Channel starting at 4:30 p.m. ET. The full race will be streamed live online at www.americanlemans.com in partnership with TodoCast.tv.
