Lamb Dominant at Autobahn; Takes Fifth-Straight MX-5 Cup Win
JOLIET, Ill. - Todd Lamb, of Atlanta, Ga., won Round Six of the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup in convincing fashion and set a new series record by winning his fifth race in-a-row. Joliet, Ill.-driver Zach Ply and Marc Miller, of Holland, Mich., completed the podium at Autobahn Country Club, site of the Harrah's Autobahn Grand Prix Presented by Mazda.
Todd Lamb leads the MX-5 Cup field to his fifth-straight win (Weber image).
As the green flag waved to
commence the 15-lap, 53.4-mile race, Miller made his bid for the lead into Turn
One, but was caught out by a lack of grip on the outside.
"The first 100 yards, I had
the best start of my life,” Miller said. “It was great. I got the jump when the
flag came out and I thought, 'man, I"m going to sail to this win.’ I gave the
room I thought I needed to give, but there wasn’t enough grip on the outside,
and when I got back into the throttle, the car slid wide. I dropped back to
fourth.”
Lamb sailed by to take back
the lead, followed by Ply and Justin Piscitell.
As Miller fought to regain his lost positions on the 18-turn, 3.56-mile
course, Lamb opened up a lead as wide as four and half seconds in his No. 84
AMG/Traqmate/Luna-C Racing MX-5.
“For the first part of the
race we did a really good couple of laps,” Lamb said. “My car was hooked up.
From there, I pulled out a good lead and started to bide my time, kind of
conserving the car, which is what you do in the middle of a race when you’ve
got a big lead. I started hearing noises and got concerned about the car
braking, so I started slow down my shifts and take it easy. [Team Owner] Jason
Hoover was on the radio, telling me the gap to second place, and we tried to
maintain that. At that point, we just wanted to get to the checkered flag
first.”
And that he did, taking his
fifth-consecutive MX-5 Cup win by 2.124 seconds, averaging 76.346 mph.
“Coming into this season, I
was expecting we’d be successful, but I couldn’t say we were expecting five
poles and five wins,” Lamb said. “Our expectations were to win a few and do the
best we could every race out. To be this successful is a credit to the AMG
guys. They’ve put a great car underneath me.
“This race is dedicated to
Kevin Malloy, a friend of mine who lost his battle with cancer yesterday,” Lamb
concluded. “It’s a sad day, but at the same time, I’m glad we were able to win
this one for him.”
Miller was able to work his
way back to second by lap two, but was re-passed by Ply two laps later. When
Miller fell back yet another spot and was forced to battle with Piscitell for
third, Ply capitalized in the No. 27 Team MER/Insight Beverage Co. MX-5 and
opened a healthy gap as Piscitell tried to fight off Miller.
“At the start of the race,
the green flag flew, and I think I got a bit of a better start than Todd did,”
Ply said. “I kind of helped him go through the inside. There’s a ton of grip
inside. I saw Marc was pushing to the exit, and we had planned to work
together, but I had to go through then and there. I tried to stick with Todd, but
he was just checking out. I put my head down and tried to catch him.
“I made a couple mistakes
early on and Marc got by me,” Ply recalled. “That gave me time to sit back and
relax behind Marc. I think we worked really well together for half the race almost,
and we ended up changing positions around the halfway point. I pulled a little
bit of a lead on him. The car was great throughout the race, so I really
thought that I was going maintain that lead on him, but he and Justin worked
well together and toward the end, they caught me. The middle of the race and
toward the end, I thought we had something for Todd, because we were slowly
reeling him in. I think if we’d had a few more laps we probably could have
closed the gap a little more.”
A second-place finish marked
the first podium appearance for Ply.
Driving the No. 28 Team
MER/MOCA/RaceNowforAutism MX-5, Miller pounced on a mistake by Piscitell to
grab third on lap nine. Together, Miller and Piscitell were able to close the
gap to Ply, but Miller ran out of time to make any passing attempts on his
teammate.
“Coming into, Turn 16 I
think it was, the brake went into ABS and never released and never gripped,”
Miller said. “I got two wheels off. I tried to stay out of Justin’s way, so he
got around me, but together we were able to work our way back up. A couple laps
later, he made a mistake in Turn Six and I was able to get a good run and pass
him. That’s when Zach was able to pull out a little bit. From there, it was
just Justin and I trying to reel Zach back in.”
Miller has now finished on
the podium in all six races this season and maintains the point lead, since
Lamb missed the opening round of the season. Lamb has moved into second and
trails Miller by 26 points (346 to 320). Piscitell is third with 315. Each
driver will be able to drop their lowest scoring race for their season point
total. If drops were factored today, Lamb would be leading Miller, 320 to 292.
Piscitell, from Patterson,
N.Y., set the fastest lap of the race, a 2:46.526 (76.961 mph) en route to
finishing fourth in the in the No. 89 ALARA Racing/DAMG Racing/ MAZDASPEED
MX-5.
Ara Malkhassian, from Sonoma, Calif.,
completed the top five in the No. 11 ALARA Racing MX-5.
Nick Mancuso, of nearby Mettawa, Ill.,
finished sixth. He was followed by Christopher Rhoades, Mark Jenkins, Jeff
Mosing and Stan Wilson.
Alfred Ciaola, of New York, N.Y.,
earned the Carbotech Hard Charger award for advancing seven positions in the
race, from 23rd to 16th.
Round Six of the SCCA Pro
Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup was aired live on HDNet, but will re-air on
syndicated cable and satellite networks. A full schedule will be available shortly
on www.mx-5cup.com.
MX-5 Cup next heads to Road America in Elkhart
Lake, Wis., for Round
Seven, Aug. 14 – 16.
