After the long break between races, I was really looking forward to getting to Salt Lake City. The Miller Park Raceway is a superb race track in the middle of the salt flats, spectacular scenery with snow-capped mountains surrounding the area - and a wind howling through the valley that would power the world's electricity in one day..!
The Highcroft team benefited from the break by catching their breath after a gruelling schedule of three street races in five weeks. Miller Park is no street race. This is a fast 23-turn road course which is extremely technical and very demanding on driver and machine. In fact, it is the longest road course in the US at 4.5 miles.
Track time at this place is crucial so, of course, things didn't go as well as we would have liked in practice. The first day we had gear selection problems and Stefan only got 15 minutes out on the track, just enough time to check the gear ratios were okay and get some kind of idea on the balance. I was scheduled to drive as well, but was a spectator watching everyone else pound around the track.
The next day was practice and qualifying and it didn't go that well either, as I was in the car and lost 30 minutes due to another problem. It was enough time to check the car and make a couple of set-up changes to give some kind of direction to get some speed out of it. We were a bit off the pace as the Dyson and Penske Porsches had tested the week before and were setting the benchmarks.
