American Le Mans Series

ACEMCO Recovers from Starter Trouble with 3rd Place GT1 Start

Terry Borcheller drove the number 63 Saleen S7-R to a third place starting position in GT1 for tomorrow’s running of the American Le Mans Series Portland Grand Prix.

Under sunny skies and a temperature of 89-degrees, Terry Borcheller was able to qualify his Saleen racer with a time of 1:08.661 and an average speed of 103 mph. Teammate Johnny Mowlem has set the pace in the car, turning a 1:08.553 lap time in the morning session. The crew has been battling a recurring starter issue this weekend that has cost them valuable practice time.

“We lost about half of the practice session with the starter problem,” said Borcheller. “The guys did a good job to get it fixed so we could qualify. I had minimal laps in the car today, just the way it worked out in the rotation. We had an understeer in qualifying that cost me some time. I think if we would have had those laps I could have been even closer. I think we had another couple of tenths in the car. We will definitely work on it and try to solve it in the warm-up tomorrow.”

“We have had some unusual starter issues this week, I hope it is behind us,” said Jeff Giangrande, team owner. “The top five GT1 cars are very close on the time sheet, all within three-quarters of a second. This track is not very technical and really doesn’t lend itself to a lot of drama, except in turn one. I am looking forward to a close tough race.”