Elkhart Lake, Wisc. (5 August 2023) – Jr III (“Junior-Three”) Racing is debuting its second IMSA WeatherTech LMP3 entry at the historic Road America track in Wisconsin this weekend. The second entry, the No. 29 Wing S2 Cyber Ligier, was right on pace on Saturday, scoring a front row spot after clocking the second-fastest time of the LMP3 class qualifying session with Bijoy Garg earning the strong result in his first ever WeatherTech qualifying run. The Jr III Racing sister car, the No. 30 Airbnb Ligier will start from sixth.
The No. 29 Wing S2 Cyber Ligier piloted by Garg and IMSA debutante Colin Noble took the Friday practice sessions to get acquainted with the car, team and track. The duo scored the sixth fastest lap in both practice sessions.
Garg qualified for the duo, making his first qualifying run in the IMSA WeatherTech Series setting a fast lap time of 1:58.860 seconds, surpassing the previous track record of 1:59.434 seconds.
“I thought it was a pretty good qualifying result overall,” said Garg. “P2 in my first WeatherTech qualifying session is pretty good, but I feel like I had a little more and I made a mistake on the lap I set my fast time. There’s definitely more there and for the first stint I think we will be able to challenge for the lead and see if we can’t hand the car over to Colin P1.”
Friday afternoon saw two practice sessions at the National Park of Speed, where the No. 30 Airbnb Ligier of Garett Grist and Ari Balogh landed the fastest lap times in both sessions. Grist scored a fast lap of 1:59.030 seconds in the first practice of the day and then followed it up with a 1:58.069 second lap in the second practice.
On Saturday, Balogh qualified for the duo scoring a sixth starting position for Sunday’s two hour and 40 minute race. Balogh qualified one spot quicker than last year’s race at Road America where the team started in seventh.
“We had a couple of really good practice sessions yesterday,” said Grist. “We’ve led both practice sessions, like we have, I think, every practice session I’ve driven in this season. I think it’s not a bad start. We just need to put it together in the race this weekend. Aggression will be at a max, so we’ll see how the race goes. We have some work to do, but we’ll get it done.”
The IMSA SportsCar Weekend will take the green flag at 11:10 am ET with live coverage on USA Network starting at 11:00 am ET.