American Le Mans Series

ACEMCO Saleen Petit Le Mans Preview

ACEMCO Motorsports takes its Saleen S7-R to round nine of the American Le Mans Series race at Road Atlanta with an increased engine restrictor and the drive to take down the factories.

The Petit Le Mans is run to the ACO rules which has the Saleen’s motor restricted, now running a 32.4mm restrictor. Drivers Terry Borcheller, Johnny Mowlem and Ralf Kelleners are forced to go into the race, deemed even more competitive with the two Aston Martins returning, with one performance hand tied behind their back. This has not deterred the independent team from taking the fight to the GM and Aston teams.

“We are running with more engine restriction, so that is affecting our straight line speed significantly,” said Borcheller. “We have to focus on getting the car like it was at Mosport almost perfect. The race is long and a lot strange things usually happen at Petit. We need to run a good strong pace, stay as close to the Vettes and Astons as possible and be there at the end.”

Johnny Mowlem also prefers to look at the big picture. “We have no idea what kind of change in performance the restrictor change will give us, but we are concentrating on getting good fuel mileage, in that instance a smaller restrictor will be helpful. We have had three successful days testing and now are ready to hopefully take over from where we left off at Mosport and take the fight to GM and Aston Martin. It should be a battle for the full 10 hours with every lap and every strategy call and pit stop being vital to who ends up standing on the podium at the end.”

“We are giving up some straight line speed to the other GT1 cars,” said team owner Jeff Giangrande. “We have taken a different approach to the race strategy and will be focusing our efforts on improved fuel economy and pit strategy. I think that the Aston and Corvette teams are so focused on each other and that they have forgotten about the silver car that can. We have worked hard this week on setup and engine mapping and are prepared go the full 10 and make a five way race of it come Saturday.”