It's been talked about for years, but yesterday the Grand-Am sports car racing series finally made its debut at the storied Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The event went off without a hitch, with plenty of good places open to watch the action for spectators, and some really good racing to watch.
The first race, the Grand-Am Continental Tire Challenge, was made interesting by a torrential downpour partway through the race in which Eric Curran and Lawson Aschenbach took the lead in their #01 CKS Camaro. Seth Thomas and Daniel Rogers took the podium in the Street Turner class in a heavily modified BMW 328i.
Later in the day, at the Rolex Brickyard Grand Prix, the still wet track posed an interesting problem for some of the drivers, who found themselves understeering into the grass. As the track dried, some drivers adjusted better than others, which made for some very exciting passes. The IMS should install a sprinkler system, that racing in the wet was fun to watch.
Sebastien Bourdais and Alex Popow may have taken first place in the Daytona Prototype division in the #02 Soloson Ford/Riley, while Andy Lally and John Potter piloted their #44 magnus Racing Porsche GT3 to victory in the GT division.
The fan favorite, however, was certainly the Mazda RX-8 GT cars that spat large gouts of flame on every downshift and sounded like 22 ton hornets on the warpath.
