Long Beach: Primetime Race Group race report

Racing series	ALMS
Date	2008-04-20

Uphill Battles On Slippery Slopes

Long Beach, CA. (April 19, 2008) After a week of building their second car from the ground up and traveling all the way from South Florida to make this weeks race, Primetime Race Group and their #11 Dodge Viper gets shafted again, literally.........

The uphill battle of campaigning an under funded and underdeveloped race car has slapped the Primetime team right across the face for the second week in a row. The Long Beach circuit is one of the most demanding street courses in the series. Its narrow corners and wavy brake zones make it a tough task for any GT car to survive. This was the case for the GT2 Viper after breaking its driveshaft in the first lap of the race sending the team home with another DNF.

The week began with chasing their setup as the team had never run Long Beach and had no data to point them in the right direction. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, brake issues had troubled the team in every session leading up to the race. Over the course of Thursday and Friday the team had felt like they made progress with the car but their qualifying time didn't seem to be what they had expected, however drivers Feinberg and Hall still had hopes of grinding out the race and moving into the top half of the field.

This Viper program previously had the blessing and support of Dodge, but after budget cuts at Chrysler the plug was pulled leaving the hopeful Viper owners to figure things out for themselves. To Feinberg that meant taking his team's knowledge and his commitment and money to the grind stone. Primetime decided to proceed on their own and take the role of turning a GT3 car into a GT2 car. This meant a complete overhaul of its current configuration. With no ALMS tire deals in place and limited part availability from Dodge, the team would have to basically start from the back and hope to work its way up to the front by mid season. Regardless of the adversities the team would face they were still determined to show up and make the best of what they had.

"I've taken on this project with the mindset that I'd rather build something around my team rather than build a team around a better car. This Viper has the potential to be a podium car but without any true support from the manufacturers, it gonna take time and some broken parts" said Feinberg.