3GT Racing focused on success at Mazda Raceway
EAST LANSING, MI (September 21, 2017) – For longtime sports car champion and Hall of Famer, Scott Pruett, racing the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix on Sunday, Sept. 24 in Monterey, California will be like racing in his back yard. If his back yard were a three-hour drive from home.
“I’m thrilled when I get this opportunity to race so close to home,” he said. “I’m typically flying across country to most of our races. I don’t have to worry about the challenges of travel and I’ll be lucky to have the family and friends there. This is absolutely my home track.”
For Pruett and the rest of the 3GT Racing team the America’s Tire 250, this is the second to last event in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship season.
Co-driving with Jack Hawksworth in the Lexus RC F GT3 No. 15, Pruett said they are focused on the car setup and prepping for the hectic traffic that he expects to be one of their biggest challenges. There will be 33 cars, 16 in the GTD class, scrambling for the lead along the 2.238-mile circuit.
“I know traffic is going to be an issue,” Pruett said. “Pit lane is short, the pit boxes are going to be tight – when you get that much traffic on that small of a track, it makes for a challenging race.
Hawksworth said the track reminds him of a motorcycle track with a lot of flowy corners. “The curbs are very low and I remember from the last time I was there, in 2012, it was a low-grip kind of track,” he said.
“Hopefully this weekend we execute well – I feel like I’ve said that a lot, but we have everything we need to win, we just get caught in unexpected ways. I’m hoping this weekend we’ll get up front and stay there.”
Drivers in the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3, Sage Karam and Robert Alon, are equally determined to find their way to the front of the pack.
Alon, another native Californian, won at the California road course in 2016 in the Prototype Challenge class. He loves the historic track and believes it’s a great place to race the Lexus.
“Last year was only a two-class race so it was simpler,” he said. “But even with only PC and GTD last year, it was very difficult to pass. There will be a lot more cars this time, it’s going to be a matter of focusing on getting through the traffic and managing the other cars.”
Karam, who has earned seven top-ten finishes this season, said the GTD class has been extremely challenging this season.
“There’s so much competition, so many good cars,” he said. “It’s very difficult to put together a perfect race. If one driver goes out, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get on the podium. You need five or six people to have a bad race to make a real impact. We know our cars are fast, we know we have the pace. We need to make the right decisions on the track, off the track and in the pits.”
IMSA.com will provide live coverage of the weekend race events starting with two hour-long practice sessions at 10 a.m. (PT) and 2:50 p.m. (PT) on Friday (that’s 7 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. ET). The Qualifying session will be 11:30 a.m. (PT) on Saturday and the two-hour and 40-minute race, America’s Tire 250, will be broadcast live on FS1 beginning at 5 p.m. (ET) on Sunday, Sept. 24.
About 3GT Racing
3GT Racing was formed to race the Lexus RC F GT3. Owned and operated by five-time Trans-Am Series Champion, Paul Gentilozzi and his longtime partners, Tony and John Gentilozzi, the East Lansing, Michigan-based team principals have been involved in motorsports for more than 46 years and have claimed more than 75 victories and 15 manufacturer and driver championships.
