SCC: Laguna Seca: Subaru Road Racing Team race notes

Subaru Road Racing Team's Consistency Paying Off
- Eating Interstate Miles Between California and Connecticut -

Phoenixville, PA -- The Subaru Road Racing Team (SRRT) finished Saturday's race at Laguna Seca Raceway in seventh position, placing team drivers Kris Skavnes and Andrew Aquilante third in the Driver Championship points, and Subaru fourth for the Street Tuner class Manufacturer Championship of the Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge series.

From a logistical perspective, the SRRT hauler now has the challenging task of completing the 3,000 mile run between Monterey, Calif., site of this weekend's Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge series race, and Lakeville, Conn., where practice starts this Friday at 10 a.m.

Then the championship hopes of the team will rest on its drivers - Andrew Aquilante, Chester Springs, Pa., and Kristian Skavnes, Sparta, N.J., as they begin round 5 of the season from their admirable third-in-points view.

"We came away from today's race with no damage and only routine maintenance needed at Lime Rock when the hauler and the #111 Subaru arrive Thursday afternoon," praised Joe Aquilante on the team's positive performance.

Aquilante owns the Phoenixville, Pa.-based SRRT Phoenix outfit which prepares the team's Subaru Legacy 2.5GT spec.B race car and serves as factory race partner for Subaru of America, Inc. This is SRRT's third season racing the Subaru. The team won two KONI Challenge races in 2007 and one in 2008. The car races in the Street Tuner class, the larger of the two classes in the series.

"At green-flag race speeds, we typically find ourselves in a two pit stop strategy to meet fueling windows," said James Han, motorsports marketing manager for Subaru of America, Inc. "At the previous race, there were no full-course caution situations to allow us duck into the pits for a couple quick gallons to make the two-hour, 30-minute distance. That dropped us to sixth at that race.

"Today we had six caution periods. Andrew Aquilante started the race and did a masterful job maintaining his position and staying out of trouble. He was running fifth when he pitted late into a full-course yellow situation and turned the car over to Kris.

"At this point we had only one hour, 12 minutes of race time remaining, so with another yellow, we'd be in good shape on gas. The problem was, though," Joe Aquilante added, "that Kris had been in fifth place when the yellow flags came out, but by the time the pit stop was done, Kris lost a couple spots getting out of the crowded pits, and was 14th when the race re-started on lap 50. He was only able to scramble back to seventh."

The Subaru Legacy's mechanical assets performed as anticipated, though. "The turbocharged 2.5-liter boxer engine was just what we needed to climb the hill on the back side of the race track," said Aquilante, "and the symmetrical all-wheel drive system kept all four wheels planted coming out of the 'corkscrew' sequence. We really appreciate that Subaru has such an excellent and capable platform for us in the Legacy."

Aquilante added he felt another round of "competition adjustments" would be forthcoming from Grand-Am officials, in an ever-evolving effort to even the competition.

Practice on the 1.52-mile Lime Rock Park circuit near Lakeville, Conn., starts Friday at 10am ET, with qualifying Saturday morning and the 2h30m race starting Saturday at 2:30pm ET.

-credit: srrt