Mid-Ohio: Bennett Racing

Bennett Racing Makes Significant Modifications to its No. 56 Ferrari with Eye Toward Future

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (June 14, 2010) - Since Bennett Racing's inaugural GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 appearance in the Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway in April, the team has been hard at work making significant modifications to its No. 56 Ferrari F430 Challenge in an effort to bring the car's performance more in line with its many world class competitors in the GT class.

As a result, the team elected to forego its originally planned participation in the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen last weekend and may also sit out the upcoming Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway next month. New plans call for the team to compete at New Jersey Motorsports Park on the weekend of July 16-18, as well as to contest the Crown Royal 200 at The Glen on August 6-7, all in support of the team's No. 1 goal, which is for the team's five drivers - team owner Skip Bennett, co-founder Mike Davidson, as well as Mike Skeen, Jonathan Allen and Chris Cobetto - to race the No. 56 Ferrari in the Rolex 24 At Daytona on January 29-30, 2011.

"The main goal in participating at VIR was to get accustomed to the procedures of a GRAND-AM event," Skeen said. "There are lots of elements that must come together, and reading the rule book or watching races on TV will not give you the whole perspective. The team coalesced very well and the guys have been working very hard in the shop to get the car up to speed for our next event."

Immediately following the VIR race, in which Skeen and Bennett co-drove to a 15th-place result in the GT class, modifications began on the bright yellow Ferrari. The team estimated that the car was substantially overweight at VIR, so the main focus has been to find ways to trim some weight out of the car.

To date, Bennett Racing has reduced a significant amount of weight by changing a number of components and parts to carbon fiber. Another area of major improvement is modifications that were made to the car's brakes. The team is tentatively planning a test at VIR within the next few weeks to compare data with what the team gathered during the race in April. That test is pending a few additional modifications, as well as seat fittings for Davidson and Allen.

"To get the car ready to race at VIR, we had a ton of work to do and little time to do it," Davidson explained. "We spent most of the time converting the car from a Ferrari Challenge car to Rolex Series GT specifications. This meant that we didn't get to add many of the carbon parts that we had originally intended, so the car was quite heavy. We are fairly certain that we have a competitive car now and we are eagerly looking to get back out there."

-source: bennet racing