Preview: Elkhart Lake Sports Car Challenge
Coming off a thrilling maiden victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last month, the No. 14 Fischer Motorsport USA Dallara P217 P2 Prototype will once again charge hard for a win at the Wisconsin track.
Jason Birnie is back in the seat of the car while Niclas Pedersen returns, looking to keep the momentum going from taking the organization’s first ever checkered flag in a VSCA sanctioned race.
Manuel Mayer and Jay Van Meppelen continue to be the drivers pairing for the No. 84 Porsche and hope to follow-up last race’s third-place podium finish with another strong result.
“We’re hungry, man! A podium is great. But we want to get that GT3 win! We should be very, very competitive this weekend, I feel like. The car is absolutely amazing, especially so on the long run.”, said Manuel Mayer.
Mayer is lucky to be able to compete in Saturday’s Elkhart Lake Sports Car Challenge, after getting COVID recently, but recovering just in time.
“I’m still a little weak and get exhausted quite quickly. You know, the usual symptoms that many folks talk about. But I’m very thankful for the vaccine. I’m going to take it a little easy this weekend, with Jay taking the bulk of the drive time, so I think I should be fine.”, Mayer added.
Everybody was visibly happy to welcome Mayer in the paddock, from team members to other drivers and competitors.
“It’s certainly a great feeling to feel so appreciated. I can’t wait to go out there and give back by putting together a good run and hopefully we’ll be able to get a good result here.”
David Leman and Stephen Nobes meanwhile share driving duties in the team’s second GT3 entry, the No. 85 Porsche 911 GT3 R. After fading late at the last race, due to an incident with another car that resulted in damage, the team is determined to avoid issues this time around.
“It’s tough, you know. We were fast at Mosport. We had great consistency, too. But in the end, we fell short of what we were capable of, because of one unfortunate incident.”, said Nobes.
“But I take that as motivation, to do better next time; to do better this weekend. David and I have done a lot of laps already and the car is very close to where we want it to be. But we fully understand this race – like any multi-class race really – is about traffic management and avoiding contacts and damage. This is the most important thing. We just have to figure out a way to stay out of trouble, then the rest will follow.”, the British veteran racer added.
Road America, the 14-turn track located just outside Elkhart Lake, in the middle of Firemans Park measures 4.04 miles (6.5 km) in length and has several challenging, famous corners that the team will have to master, such as “the Carousel”, “the Kink” and “Canada Corner”.
The VSCA SportsCar Championship has one more championship round after this, the VSCA Petit Le Mans on October 8th at Road Atlanta. However, Road America this weekend marks the finale of the in-series VSCA Sprint Cup championship, the championship including all four sprint races of the season.
The best-positioned Fischer Motorsport entry in the VSCA Sprint Cup standings is the No. 84 Porsche 911 GT3 R that currently sits in third place, but with a hefty 300-point margin to the lead.
Apex Racing TV will broadcast Saturday’s two-hour and 40-minute Elkhart Lake Sports Car Challenge live on YouTube, flag to flag. It will be VSCA’s final broadcasted race of the 2022 season.
The race is scheduled to take the green flag at 18:00 CEST / 12 pm noon ET.
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