DETROIT (June 2, 2016) – Paul Miller Racing will be shooting for its first 2016 win and third-straight podium finish on the Raceway at Belle Isle Park in Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Chevrolet Sports Car Classic race at the Detroit Grand Prix with drivers Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow and the team’s No. 48 Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
The featured 100-minute Sports Car Classic sprint can be seen live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) this Saturday, June 4, at 12:30 p.m. EDT. The race is Round 4 of 10 races for the GT Daytona (GTD) class in the 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Then team drivers Christopher Haase and Dion von Moltke finished third in the No. 48 last year in Detroit, one year after Haase and Bryce Miller first scored a GTD third-place finish on the 2.35-mile Motown street course.
A third-straight podium finish in Detroit on Saturday would be a 2016-season-best result for Paul Miller Racing, which is in its first season with the new driver pairing of Sellers and Snow and the new-to-IMSA Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
Racing at Detroit will in turn be an entirely new experience for Sellers. He raced the last seven seasons in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class that has never been part of the Detroit event.
“I have been to the Detroit race in the past but never actually raced there,” Sellers said. “The GTLM class was never able to attend the race due to the Le Mans break so this will be very different for me. It’s not often we get to experience new tracks anymore. I am excited to get there and learn the track and its intricacies. I have watched a lot of video and gone through a lot of data but nothing prepares you for a street course other than getting out there and driving. It will take a few laps to figure it out, but I am excited for the challenge.”
Snow previously raced at Detroit in GTD in 2014, finishing ninth, and has had success on other street circuits in the past.
“I like the Detroit track but have only raced on one other street course in my past and I enjoyed it just as much,” Snow said. “It was Baltimore and I got a first and second one weekend there. Street courses can be both good and bad for me. They can be a lot of fun and bring out a lot of the characteristics of the car, yet there is so much risk associated with it that there is always something to watch out for. I enjoy racing on them for sure!”
Paul Miller Racing’s seventh-place finish one race ago at Laguna Seca was the highest for a Lamborghini in that event.
Sellers, Snow and Bryce Miller also topped the Lamborghini ranks at Sebring March, co-driving the No. 48 Huracán GT3 to a season-best sixth in the grueling 12-hour race.
Another season-best finish Saturday would give the No. 48 team some valuable points in a GTD championship that will be one race shy of the mid-season mark after Detroit.
“I think that while we started this season in a little bit of a hole, and some others had good races, that fortune can change, and the same can be true for us,” Sellers said. “You can only do your job and control the short-term items. We always try and prepare to the best of our ability and do the best job we can. Detroit will be no different.”
The shortest GTD race and event on the 2016 schedule, the Belle Isle race begins with a pair of practice sessions Friday before qualifying that afternoon from 5:05 – 5:20 p.m. Race-day Saturday begins with a 30-minute warm-up at 8 a.m. with the 100-minute race scheduled to start that afternoon at 12:40 p.m.
Noteworthy
– Like Snow, Sellers brings some winning street course experience to Detroit for his Belle Isle race debut. “I have raced on a lot of street courses through my career,” Sellers said. “I have been fortunate enough to race at all the big circuits, Long Beach, Baltimore, Toronto, Denver, Vancouver, and I have had the fortune of being on the podium in a few of them, and winning two in Baltimore.”
