Corvette Racing Is Getting The Job Done In the Pits At Lime Rock Park
Races are often won or lost in the pits, but at Lime Rock Park, it’s even more important to be perfect.
The IMSA Weathertech
GT cars are running right now at Lime Rock Park in Salisbury, Connecticut. While quick pit stops are always important, Lime Rock's short track (1.53 miles) means pit stops have to be perfect every time.
The GTLM and GTD cars are turning in laps around 50 seconds around the track. A pit stop, including the time spent driving down pit lane, takes about 50 seconds at Lime Rock. It's the conundrum of short track racing, a pit stop under green flag running will put you a lap down. Sure, it's the same for everyone, but every extra second a car is stopped is a greater percentage of a lap lost. Perfection is required each and every time a car serviced.
Corvette Racing is getting the job done in the pits today. The No. 3 Corvette, which is leading as of writing this, came in for a stop not too long ago. The crew put on a clinic on doing it right in the pits.
Unlike the army of crew members you see in a Formula One pit stop, IMSA limits the number of crew members that are allowed over the wall to service the car. The key is to get the driver change and tires done before the car is refueled. What looks like a chaotic mess of crew members running around is carefully orchestrated. This is Corvette Racing getting it absolutely right.
Everyone gets their job done well before the car is full of fuel. Take a look at the guy changing the front right tire. Rather than placing the old wheel and tire up against the wall for someone to lean over and grab it, which is what just about every other team does, the wheel man effortlessly chucks it over the wall. This saves the team about a second and there is one less thing to get in the way as the car pulls away.
No big deal.
And kudos to the guy who has to catch that wheel.
The pit crew is so often the unsung heroes on race day. So, hats off to you, pit crew folks. Keep up the hard work.
