Today, Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport was the site of official qualifying for tomorrow’s Cart Toyota Atlantic race, part of the Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland. Atlantic drivers took to the temporary track for a half-hour qualifying session early this afternoon, after having had the benefit of an early morning one-hour practice session.
Having struggled to keep his car on track at yesterday’s qualifying, Gormley, Ontario’s Jonathan Macri welcomed, without hesitation, the opportunity to test his car at this morning’s practice session. Jonathan clocked the 6th quickest time of 68:80 seconds. However, further adjustments to the NTN car made subsequent to the practice session netted negative results for the car’s performance. Qualifying therefore saw Jonathan clock the 11th quickest time of 69:40 seconds.
“This isn’t exactly what we had in mind”, Jonathan said. I think we had the right set-up or close to it this morning, but I guess our enthusiasm to get a top-three qualifier got the better of us. The drastic changes we made after practice didn’t work in our favour at all. I think we will probably go back to the set-up we had at this morning’s practice session. We are also installing a new motor. This one seems a bit tired. Hopefully, this will improve our chances of reaching a top-five finish.”
On the upside, Jonathan’s quickest qualifying lap-time was only one-half second slower than that of the sixth-place car. In addition, it would appear that the team knows now how best to prepare the NTN car, and an early-morning warm-up session tomorrow should suffice to make any last-minute adjustments to the car before the race tomorrow afternoon. Also, the Cleveland racecourse is Jonathan’s kind of track; it is wide and allows for a number of opportunities to pass.
Undoubtedly, it has been a frustrating weekend for the NTN team. Hopefully, though, the car will be at its best-possible performance level tomorrow and Jonathan will be able to treat Cleveland race fans to some real come-from-behind racing drama.
Report by Fedele Fortino
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