IWSC: Road America
Third time’s the charm, or at least that’s the adage. MLT rolled into to their third IWSC weekend in LMP3 with high-spirits having demonstrated speed and stayed on the steep learning curve from the past two events. Josh Sarchet and Dakota Dickerson were again set to take on the best LMP3 squads in the country for a two hour and forty-minute battle around the fast 4-mile Road America.
Mixed results in the two practice sessions as the team chased a few ideas on finding speed around America’s National Park of Speed. Small discrepancies amplify around such a long circuit, but the team kept their heads’ down to push through to qualifying. Josh again took on his qualifying duties and put the car on the second row in forth place. A position that the team could easily race from, especially considering the typical chaos of fuel mileage or changing weather during this race.
Race day arrived and the skies made the call that weather was going to make life difficult for the teams. Off and on sprinkles and mist dampened the track but not enough where wet tires could survive on the aged and Wisconsin winter battle scared pavement. Josh took the start in the treacherous damp conditions and kept the car on the island of pavement. With the chaos of the start and traffic conditions Josh handed the car off to Dakota in sixth place under the first Full Course Yellow.
The rain finally came in full force during this yellow and Dakota made the call to come in for wet tires before the restart. This put the team down in eight place, but Dakota was ready to fight his way to the front. A short rain stint and battle took place until another Full Course Yellow came out, at which point the track state was in a tricky limbo. With the pit opening for prototype classes first the team came in and put on a fresh set of wet tires with a storm cell stalling over the circuit.
However, due to the size of the track this cell hung over the race track grounds and continued to rain just no longer on the racing surface. Quickly after the restart it was evident that the teams gambling on slicks had the advantage and MLT was forced to pit for dry tires.
Dickerson with fresh slick on a still cold and damp track charged out of pit lane and put in laps to keep the team on the lead lap after the pit stop off sequence. Dakota got his job done and when the third Full Course Yellow cam out he was able to pack up with the field and come in with the leaders for fresh slicks in preparation for the dash to the checkered flag.
The race would end behind the safety car as a DPi crashed in the kink wit around ten minutes to go. Without a restart Dickerson, Sarchet, and the MLT crew would have to settle for fifth. All in a decent result salvaged in the chaos of constantly changing conditions and ill-timed yellows.