Krohn Racing Preview for the New Jersey Grand-Am Race

Krohn Racing joins the other Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series’ teams in Millville, New Jersey this week for the penultimate race of the 2008 Grand-Am season, the inaugural Supercar Life 250 at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

Round 13 of 14 will feature Krohn Racing team owner/driver Tracy W. Krohn paired with veteran sports car driver Eric van de Poele in the No. 75 Krohn Racing Pontiac Lola. The No. 76 Krohn Racing Pontiac Lola combines Nic Jönsson and former Formula One ace Ricardo Zonta piloting the 500-horsepower Pontiac-powered Proto-Auto Lola.

You are going to a new track in New Jersey for the first time with Grand-Am. Tell us about your thoughts and plans.

"Yes, it’s a new track at New Jersey. No one has really seen it yet. Probably Eric will get out on the track for the first couple of sessions and I’ll drive the next day. I’ve seen video of the track. It looks like it’s got a lot of dirt around it kind of like Laguna Seca in a way.

I can’t really tell about the relief on the track but from what I’ve seen, it looks like it’s going to be sandy and dirty and maybe a little bit slippery, particularly since there won’t be a whole lot of rubber down. We’ll see what it turns out to be. It’s always fun to go to a new place."

"We’ve got two races left in the year. We’ve had some Top Five finishes and a couple of podium finishes this year, but we’re not really where we wanted to be. Again, some of it has been ‘Lady Luck’ and some of it has been the fact that we’ve had to do some development on the car. The car is still being developed. I think that you’ll see a real positive finish for the end of the year. Probably, I would hope a podium finish over the next two races.

It certainly has that capability. Other teams have come on strong as well. We’ve all gotten better during the year. As far as going into next year, we’ve got some work to do to get it exactly where we want it. But I think that the next two races and the break in between seasons you’ll see a much better, stronger car."

"I always enjoy going to new tracks and also to add to my list of circuits of nearly 90 in my career so far. It will be fun to learn another new track in the U.S. and it will be the same for all the competitors. We will all be learning the nuances of this circuit and trying our best to put together a good set-up for the car in the shortest amount of time. I believe very much in the Krohn Racing team and they can do this and do it well. I am quite impressed with what the team has developed with the new car so far. Every single race it gets better!"

"Everyone is working very hard to develop the new Proto-Auto Lola. I would really like to have a Top Five finish for Tracy and me this year, and possibly a podium. This is my wish for Tracy and the team and what we are striving to do. We will continue to work hard and see if we can achieve this…perhaps this weekend in New Jersey."

"Obviously New Jersey is a brand new race track. It’s a very nice development up there. I also know for a fact, because I went testing there with Kinetics, that the track is very hard on tires. That will probably work in our favor because it seems the Proto-Auto Lola is very good on tires wear."

"It’s the second to the last race of the year and I think we’ve been making progress all year long. Hopefully the last couple of races we can at least have a good finish of the year….and have a good championship finish, at least in the Top Five, if not better. I’m very excited to go there and see a new race track and see what we can do because nobody has been there before and that really levels the playing field."

"I do believe that Ricardo and I have it down pretty good when it comes to learning a new track. He’s been learning new tracks all year and is very fast in about ten laps or so. I think there will be other people that will struggle more than us to learn the race track and get up to speed. Hopefully that will play in our favor as well. We have to go to New Jersey and see if we can get the Proto-Auto Lola to work up there. I think the downforce level should also be pretty high from what I’ve seen on the data. We’ll go up there and hopefully have a good finish again."

"I don’t know that much about the New Jersey track. It’s a mix of fast corners and slow corners and long corners too. It will be good for me to go a little bit earlier to learn the track on Wednesday or Thursday and we’ll see."

"I think our engineers and data people are prepared to do a good job. We are one of the teams more prepared for that and I think it looks good at this point. In my view, I need to work hard and try to find the speed in the car to win a race. It would be very nice to finish the championship with a win."

"Yes, we’re going to be challenging a new track. We like to think we can get the set-up tuned in reasonably quickly, especially when you’ve got such talented drivers as we’ve got in both cars. It’s a great asset when you go to a new track. We’ll be doing two 45-minute sessions on Thursday with an aim to picking a set-up direction that we’ll follow for the rest of the weekend."

The Krohn Racing team, now in its third year of Grand-Am competition, is currently tied for 6th (No. 76) and 15th (No. 75) in the Daytona Prototype points chase after 13 of 14 races this season. Jönsson and Zonta have two podium finishes, a third-place at Mexico City and Daytona 250, a fourth-place finish in the season opening Rolex 24 At Daytona and two fifth place finishes. Krohn and van de Poele have three Top 10 finishes so far this year, including a seventh-place finish at the Rolex 24 and 10th at Mexico City and Montreal.

In 2007, the Krohn Racing team collected six podium finishes, three 2nd-places and three 3rd-place finishes, as well as two pole positions by former Krohn driver Colin Braun. Between the two cars, they had nine Top 5 finishes and 14 Top 10’s. Krohn cars finished fourth (No. 75) and 13th (No. 76) in the Daytona Prototype series championship standings. Tracy Krohn was awarded the Jim Trueman Award for Sportsman drivers. Additionally, Krohn, Jönsson and Braun finished second in the GT2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Supercar Life 250 race from Millville, New Jersey will be televised live on Sunday, August 31st, at 1:00 p.m. EDT on SPEED TV. For more information, please see www.grand-am.com  and www.krohnracing.net.  

- Barbara J. Burns -  photos Krohn