SRT Motorsports - Petit Le Mans Promoter's Test Quotes - Road Atlanta

October 13, 2013 , Braselton, Ga. -  On-track activity for the 2013 Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta started this morning with a Promoter’s Test session. SRT Motorsports driver Marc Goossens logged the quickest overall time with a lap of 1:19.597 seconds, just .005 better than teammate Jonathan Bomarito’s best lap of 1:19.602. Testing resumes this afternoon with a five-hour session – 12:00–5:00 p.m.
 
Marc Goossens – No. 91 SRT Viper GTS-R
“Coming back here a year after Petit Le Mans 2012 we know what we’ve gone through with the car. We’ve done a lot of development on the car. Everything on it is different than what we had last year. We rolled off the trailer pretty good, pretty competitive and just need to keep that for the rest of the week. We’ve got some items to test. We played around a little bit in that morning session trying some things. I think the lap times were good considering the fact that we weren’t pushing it like you would be in qualifying mode. On top of that, I don’t think that the track is up to it yet. There’s not enough cars up to this point to clean the track, so there is more to come during the week. We have to get some test items out of the way which we’ll do in today’s afternoon test and tomorrow. It’s a good time for it but we have to maximize the opportunity that we have today and tomorrow to get all our drivers some seat time. I can’t wait for Ryan (Dalziel) to get here so he can get back into this SRT Viper GTS-R and get familiar with it again. It’s different to what he usually drives.
 
“There’s two focuses with the test: track time for the drivers and trying some more test items. We’re not necessarily looking for the ideal setup right now with the way that the track is; I think we get to that later in the week but so far, so good.”
 
ARE YOU SURPRISED HOW CLOSELY THE TWO SRT VIPER GTS-R CARS RAN IN THAT SESSION? “They should be very similar. We’ve got two different directions that we want to take and test items but I think the starting point was pretty close. To see pretty close lap times I think is kind of normal. In an ideal world, we can throw whatever we want on the car and we’re not going to go like seconds apart. We’ll see what the rest of the week brings but right now everything is running well. The guys did a great job putting the cars back together after VIR in a very limited amount of time. To go out here and feel comfortable with the car right away is pretty nice.”
    
Jonathan Bomarito – No. 93 Pennzoil Ultra SRT Viper GTS-R
“I’m really pleased with how well the cars rolled out of the trailer which we kind of expected, to be honest. The last few races, the cars have rolled out of the truck with a really good baseline setup, decent balance. We had some system checks in that first session today. We have a long week so we have to pace ourselves. 
 
“We’re doing some things right now that we haven’t had the opportunity to do on race weekends. You’re so limited on time that you don’t want to risk going down a certain route and it not work. We have the time now so we’re trying some things that have been in our playbook. It’s good for the team and good info.
 
“I like what Team SRT does. We’re in race mode. Everything is done the same way every single time. When we get to race day, we’re not hearing different words on the radio, come into the (pit) box a different way. We start that now. Even though it’s a Promoter’s Test day, everything is the same and we get in a routine, a habit. At this level, everything needs to be perfect and it starts from there.”