It's bright, sunny and brisk at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Monterey Sports Car Championships. American Le Mans Series is the feature headliner for full weekend which also includes SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge, IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge Presented by Michelin, Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear, and SFR Mazda Miata Challenge Series. It will be a challenging weekend indeed.
This is the last Pro weekend for the 2005 season at Laguna Seca, and it picks up next March for the new A1GP Series. After that, Laguna goes 'cold' for even more track updating to accommodate the
MotoGP series, which will return next July after a wildly successful debut this summer. The FIM folks want more run-off and other safety modifications. One noticeable change will be the digging away of the hill at turn one, upon which now sits the media centre - which had a spectacular vista of most of the track. It will be no more, as the hill will be dug back to widen/improve the circuit for the motorcycle riders.
The new media centre could be relocated to the paddock. The concept is getting a road test this weekend with the new three-story modular building overlooking pit-lane being used as a makeshift media centre. The media won't mind schlepping equipment up three flights of stairs and looking at start-finish and pit-lane.
The fastest cars so far this weekend have been the ADT Champion Racing Audi R8s and the Zytek Engineering Zytek 04S. They swapped turns being fastest in each session.
FRANK BIELA was fastest car during the Friday daylight test session, Zytek was quickest in night practice with HAYANARI SHIMODA. JJ LEHTO then went fastest in Friday morning practice, and TOM CHILTON fastest Friday afternoon.
