PSR Heads to Road Atlanta
20 June 1998
Braselton, GA- The Professional Sports Car Racing (PSR) series picks up the season at the newly re-configured Road Atlanta. The North Georgia facility will be hosting three races this weekend for the WSC (World Sports Car) as well as GT1, GT2 and GT3. On Saturday the Stock Sports Cars will grid at 2:00pm for a two hour and forty-five minute race. The week-end of racing will be completed with the 30 minute Sports Toyota Championship. The WSC, GT1, GT2 and GT3 classes will begin there 3 hour and forty-five minute battle at 1:07pm on Sunday. Coming off a previous week-end of racing at Mid-Ohio under the USRRC sanctioning most of the teams will be making the 10 hour trip from Lexington, Ohio to Georgia. Last week-end's race was very competitive. A dramatic battle developed between the WSC's of Dyson Racing and the Panoz GT1 as well as the Champion Porsche GT1. Eventually the WSC's of Dyson Racing prevailed with a 1-2 sweep. The Panoz' and Champion Porsche each held the lead during the race but could not keep up the blistering pace of the Dyson cars. The preliminary entry list for this week-end looks like an exact copy of the entry list at Mid-Ohio. The Atlanta week-end will mark a continuation of the championship battle between the WSC's Ford and Ferrari. At Lime Rock Ford/Dyson driver's Butch Leitzinger and James Weaver grabbed a dramatic victory over Ferrari driver's Wayne Taylor and Eric van der Poele. Taylor comes into the week-end with a slim two point lead in the driver's championship. In GT1, the Panoz GTR's will have some competition from the lone Champion Porsche GT1 entry. With Road Atlanta being the home of Panoz Motorsports a good showing is mandatory. With that attitude be a prevailing doctrine the Panoz team will enter three cars this week-end. Adding to the pressure is the reminder that Road Atlanta is also the place where the Panoz team scored their first victory last year. It will be an interesting story to watch on Sunday. In GT2 and GT3, the race will once again boil down to a Porsche v.BMW fight. In GT3, the BMW's of Tom Milner's Prototype Technology Group have been the dominant team in either sanctioning series. In GT2, the Porsche of Larry Schumacher and Klaus Ludwig appear to have found their 1997 performance level. So with just three races left in the PSR season the points battle has begun. The Panoz team can virtually lock up the GT1 Championship with a victory this week-end. In WSC, the battle will probably be a repeat of last year's down to the wire finish at the final race at Laguna Seca. In GT2 the championship battle will also probably be decided in the last race. In GT3, it looks doubtful that anyone can stop the BMW tidal wave. David Treffer -- The Auto Channel
