{"id":3560,"date":"2021-08-08T18:27:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T18:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=3560"},"modified":"2021-08-08T18:27:23","modified_gmt":"2021-08-08T18:27:23","slug":"stoner-car-care-racing-battles-the-conditions-at-road-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/08\/stoner-car-care-racing-battles-the-conditions-at-road-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Stoner Car Care Racing Battles the Conditions at Road America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Series rookie de Quesada brings the car home in wet conditions in Wisconsin<\/em><\/p>\n

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (7 August 2021)<\/strong> \u2013 For team engineers, it\u2019s never a good feeling to spend the bulk of a race with one eye on the data and the other eye on the radar, but that was the case for the Stoner Car Care Racing fielded by Automatic Racing team in Saturday\u2019s Road America 120, the seventh race of the 2021 Michelin Pilot Challenge season.<\/p>\n

On a rapidly changing 4.048-mile Road America layout, drivers Ramin Abdolvahabi and Michael de Quesada brought the No. 99 Invisible Glass Aston Martin home undamaged, settling for a 20th-place finish at the end of a wild two-hour race.<\/p>\n

For the 21-year-old de Quesada, the race marked both his series and team debut, and his first race in the Aston Martin. With a steep learning curve and only two practice sessions to complete his personal database, the young Floridian \u2013 the 2016 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA Gold champion \u2013 took to the task with aplomb.<\/p>\n

Cool temperatures and cloudy skies greeted the team on Friday, with two practice sessions on the day. Abdolvahabi opened the first session, to ensure that the Aston Martin\u2019s setup was ready to go, with de Quesada using the latter stages of the session to get oriented to the car\u2019s handling characteristics. In\u00a0\u00a0the second practice later that day, de Quesada came out of the gate flying, setting times within a second of the leaders before the pair finished the session P13.<\/p>\n

Abdolvahabi took the wheel for qualifying, knowing that severe weather was on the horizon. Encountering traffic on his two flying laps, Abdolvahabi put the Aston Martin into Row 11 for Saturday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

With damp conditions on track and the skies darkening to the west, the team knew that weather would be a factor. Abdolvahabi took the green flag on Michelin rain tires with temperatures in the low 70s and light rain falling. Abdolvahabi was just settling in, up to 20th, when an early full-course caution slowed the field and halted his forward progress.<\/p>\n

On the restart, Abdolvahabi continued his charge, taking advantage of other driver\u2019s mistakes and making careful passes in the drying-but-still-damp conditions to move up to 18th. With just over 40 minutes elapsed, he ducked into pit lane for fuel and a change to de Quesada. But a radio issue delayed de Quesada\u2019s exit from pit lane, dropping him to 21st as the rain began to increase.
\nAs track conditions continued to deteriorate, de Quesada focused on hitting his marks and keeping the Aston Martin out of trouble. Pitting for left side tires helped the performance, but despite his best efforts he was not able to push forward, bringing the car home in 20th position, but thankfully undamaged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was comfortable with the car right away, but it was just tough conditions today,\u201d said de Quesada. \u201cThere were so many variables that were out of our control, like how quickly the rain tires wore early in the race, as the track was drying. We had some radio issues, some tire issues, and all of those combined to make for a difficult day. The team did a great job and put together a great car, I really enjoyed running with the team and in the series.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was one of those weekends where you just have to take what the track and the conditions give you,\u201d said Abdolvahabi. \u201cI took it easy at the start and passed a few cars. It was difficult, with a lot of cars going off, but it was the problem in the pits that really hurt us. But that\u2019s racing sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBCSN will broadcast a two-hour race recap on Wednesday, August 18 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (check local listings). Next up for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge will be the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, September 10 through 12.
\nAbout Invisible Glass<\/strong><\/p>\n

Automatic Racing sees their way to victory with Invisible Glass, the top-selling automotive glass cleaner in the United States. The Invisible Glass product line includes aerosol and spray bottle cleaner, Invisible Glass with rain repellent for windshields and wiper blades. Find more online at\u00a0https:\/\/www.invisibleglass.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

About Stoner Car Care\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stoner Car Care produces high-performance car washes, waxes, polishes, and dressings for auto enthusiasts and car care professionals. The Stoner Car Care line-up includes Invisible Glass, America’s #1 Automotive Glass Cleaner, along with many other appearance products. Whether driving, washing or waxing, Performance Matters! Stoner car care proudly formulates all of our product since 1942<\/p>\n

About Automatic Racing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based in Orlando, Automatic Racing is one of the longest-running teams in the paddock, forming in 2001 and competing in all but one of the 11 MICHELIN Pilot Challenge races at Daytona. The team has been developing, preparing and racing the prestigious Aston Martin Vantage GT4 since 2012. Automatic Racing won the 2017 MICHELIN Pilot Challenge title.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Series rookie de Quesada brings the car home in wet conditions in Wisconsin ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (7 August 2021) \u2013 For team engineers, it\u2019s never a [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3562,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560\/revisions\/3562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}