Third Place at Last Race Season-Best for Castrol EDGE/Paul Miller Racing No. 48 Lamborghini Huracán GT3
LAKEVILLE, Connecticut (July 21, 2016) – Paul Miller Racing and drivers Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow will bring the momentum of the team’s first 2016 podium finish two weeks ago to Lime Rock Park this weekend where the team will be looking for its first win of the season in the No. 48 Castrol EDGE Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
The seventh of 11 races in the 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Daytona (GTD) class, the Northeast Grand Prix can be seen live on FOX this Saturday, July 23, at 3 p.m. EDT.
The Northeast Grand Prix is 2016’s only IMSA race to be featured on the flagship FOX network. All other IMSA WeatherTech races are broadcast on the sister FOX Sports 1 (FS1) and FOX Sports 2 (FS2) networks.
The No. 48 team comes to Lime Rock Park following a third-place finish at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park one race ago, the best of the season for Paul Miller Racing and the first podium for the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 in IMSA competition.
Last month, Paul Miller Racing also gave Lamborghini its first IMSA pole when Sellers was the top qualifier for the Detroit Grand Prix.
“I am a big believer in momentum,” Sellers said. So, coming off the Canadian Tire weekend, that will hopefully propel us forward. We certainly haven’t lacked for speed in the last couple of races. It has just been a little bit of misfortune that has taken us the wrong way. Hopefully the tide will continue to change and we will keep moving in the right direction.”
In addition to top driving by Sellers and Snow, key strategy decisions and more familiarity with first-year Lamborghini have helped the Paul Miller Racing team improve its performance at recent races.
“We have been improving at every race,” Snow said. “A lot of it is because we are starting to learn the Lamborghini GT3 car a lot better, how to tune it as well as the quickest way to drive it. Hopefully we can leave Lime Rock in a better position than we left Mosport in!”
The No. 48 team and drivers are highly focused and motivated heading to Lime Rock, which kicks-off a five-race run to the end of the season.
“A podium really tends to get the morale up,” Sellers said. “I know everybody has their head in the right place now, you feel how close you are when you are on the podium, and I feel pretty good moving forward.”
A twist to this year’s Northeast Grand Prix is the addition of the faster GT Le Mans (GTLM) race cars to the race.
“Having GTLM at Lime Rock will definitely add more ‘excitement’ to the race due to their being more cars on track,” Snow said. “One car can make or ruin the race for us depending on how safe they drive, if they hold us up and let others gain on us, or make us lose time on the cars ahead. They can also hold up cars ahead of us as well.
“It’s a bit like having five wild cards in a card game. Sometimes they help one person, or sometimes everyone comes away equally scarred from it.”
Previously at Lime Rock, the GTD class raced alongside only the Prototype Challenge (PC) class, which is also one of the three classes competing in the Northeast Grand Prix.
“I do think it is a difficult pairing between the car groupings,” said Sellers, who raced in GTLM the last six seasons. “You take the cars that are the closest in speed and put them up against each other on one of the hardest places to pass.
“It will be difficult managing traffic from a GTD perspective but at the end of the day it will be irrelevant because we all have to deal with the same situation. Everyone will have the same amount of traffic and pass and be passed by the same cars.”
Just 1.5 miles in length, Lime Rock Park is by far the shortest track on the IMSA circuit.
“Lime Rock is the shortest track we will race at all year,” Snow said. “It gives a little different aspect to the track mentally but I don’t believe it changes the racing a lot, other than the fact that the front straight is shorter than most, which can make it more difficult to get around other cars.”
A two-day event weekend, opening practice for the Northeast Grand Prix begins Friday with a one-hour session at 11:10 a.m. A second one-hour practice that afternoon at 2:05 p.m. precedes GTD qualifying at 4:30 p.m.
Race-day Saturday starts with a 20-minute warm-up at 9:05 a.m. The Northeast Grand Prix main event goes green at 3:05 p.m.
Follow Paul Miller Racing at www.PaulMillerRacing.com, on Twitter @PaulMilleracing and at the Official Team Page on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/PaulMillerRacing.
