FlatSix911

A few of my favorite shots ...

crispenigl

I completely agree. Very shocked that he didnt get his position DQed.

He blocked the living hell out of him.

As a racer I hate that bull****.

The vette should have been given a time penalty for the obvious bump at turn in as well.

but blocking someone to the wall should be a huge penalty.

crispenigl

seriously.

James A

The Corvette team hit cars from every class at this race, put a BMW in gravel with a stupid move at the end of the front straight. They were "bump" passing all day and getting away with it. No, I don't think you put someone in the wall at speed, but where the heck were the stewards all day in regards to the Corvette NASCAR crap? It is clear they won't get penalized for pushing cars out of the way so Jorg "defended" his position. Was Flying Lizard penalized for Jorg's move? I guess that kind of driving is OK in ALMS.

bgiere

How about the Vette crew chief egging them on and laughing whenever the Vette tapped another car? How about the Vette blinding everyone by driving behind them with the high beams on? classless thugs. Joerg gave them their own medicine at the end.

h20skier

Again I totally agree. The Corvettes dominated GT1 for years because it had like 4 cars in it. They can't figure out how these pesky little flat 6's are still running so hard to the end. Impatients on a race track makes for either bad mistakes on the drivers side or bullying to get their way. This was both.

His Punt on the last turn to the Porsche was a last ditch effort to spin him out and win the race without him by his side. The Corvette deserved every cent of the 150-200k it will take to put it back together.

One of Twenty

+ Eleventy Brazillion.

This morning - I kept replaying the last lap and watching the other Team Corvette "Lowlights". Mag and friends got exactly what they deserved. Next year will be outstanding.

Polar Peter

Completely justified and one of the best last lap(s) in a long time... Bravo Herrn Bergmeister!!

MartyB

Both drivers were apparently placed on probation for the first two races of the 2010 season. Any violations and they are suspended for a minimum of 2 races.

http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html...cle&sid=121693

Ritesh

Even though I wanted Burg to win I hated to see it end that way.

I liked the drama in the last few laps but they both knew how to push each other. Punting somebody into the wall at high speeds is a defnite No No. I would preferred seeing the corvette winning and then getting penalized for the bumping and losing it based on the stewards ruling over a car and more importantly a Driver getting smacked into a wall at high speeds to decide the race.

brendo

^ while i see your point, it's probably not what the lizard team was thinking. the corvette only had to give back his place after a major safety violation passing in the pit exit. he should have received a drive thru penalty.

i can hardly believe the stewards would have taken the victory because of a bump in the last turn

James A

And, where is the probation for the dumbass move at the end of the front straight when a corvette took out four other cars? A rookie move even stupid by corvette team standards. So Corvette can punt other cars all day but when they get a little of their own medicine probation is handed out??

cfjan

This is from a post in Corvette Forum. The poster was Lou Gigliotti of LG Motorsports, which runs Corvettes in the series.. I would think he would know the situation better than most..

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Hi Guys,

First let me say that Jan is the only driver on the Chevy team that came to congratulate us last race for out qualifying the Factory team. He is a class act.

He is also one tough driver .

First incident in pit out lane: the rule is there because there are always cars coming out of the pits and they have to travel around past turn 2 to enter the track. So driving 4 wheels into that lane is just asking for trouble. If there was a car coming out of the pits then, it would have been really bad for them.

Let me also say that in practice (yes practice) there was only one car that constantly hit us (yes hit us) or shoved our corvette into the dirt and they were the Corvette factory cars. Even when we were waiving them by, they would brush us or squeeze us. even at Atlanta, on the long straight as we were passing them they squeezed our driver (on video) against the grass for some reason.
I can only assume that the drivers were "Instructed" to intimidate us so we might be off our game and not repeat the Atlanta qualifying scenario.

No other cars on the track do that. Not to us and not to the others. Just the factory Corvette team. (must be the foreigners)

At any rate, at Laguna, which is Government owned, they did not want to move the inside pit wall toward the paddock to widen the exit of the pits to make room for the flagger's stand at start finish. So they pushed the pit wall toward the track side. so the pit wall curves toward the track side. If you look at the video, you will see that if you run within inches of the pit wall and stay totally straight on your steering, you WILL hit the part of the wall that is pushed toward the track side.

This is a common crash at Laguna. It would not require the 45 car to do anything for this crash to happen.

If you look at the video, you will see that Jan sees the wall coming and he turns to the right to avoid the wall. Bergmeister just provided the pivot that turned the Corvette to the right.
The Porsche then touches his brakes to avoid the Corvette as it crosses in front of the 45 car. The porsche just got out of the way and let the Corvette continue across the track and unfortunately into the wall. Thankfully Jan was ok because the hit was not a dead straight hit but rather a glancing blow to the wall.

Now to turn 11, the last turn. Jan is a hard racer. He saw that he was not going to be able to pass him cleanly so he released his brakes and actually accelerated into the Porsche with the intention of spinning him.

The contact only wiggled the Porsche enough to cause a drag race against the pit wall. "A wall that has a curve in it that protrudes toward the track side.

Once they were an inch away from the wall and an inch away from each other, there was no other outcome that could be had without the Corvette or Porsche giving up and lifting. And this was a high contact sport for some laps.
And to ask the porsche to lift and hand over the just after the Porsche got tagged intentionally and cleaqrly smashed in the rear by Jan, would be asking a racer too much.

So that is the way I see it. The Corvette drivers are getting a reputation as the "dirty" drivers in the series. When Johnny O pushed the Porsche into the gravel earlier, it was considered a good thing by the team. "Rah rah rah, good job" is what came over their radio.


So there you have it. You reap what you sow and if you rough drive too much, this kind of thing WILl happen more often.

Oh, and during the race, we lost a few laps for a couple of reasons, and bad calls on our part but while we were on track, our #28 car was hit in the door by the #3 car really hard in turn 9, while trying to let them by. and again in turn 2, they drove across my right front splitter and bumper. Weird!

Thanks

Lou Gigliotti

h20skier

Bullies....It's proven and it sounds like the Corvettes just have too much money behind them to care. Funny the same thing happens in the Ferrari Challenge Series but that's just Bumper Cars for Mega Millionaires. I just don't see the difference in the end and it's too bad. The ONLY racing I will watch is Road Racing and I hope it doesn't continue this spiral downward.

Jorg getting Probation makes no sense imho but I am an old Porsche Racer....could be biased

JohnnyBahamas

Interesting post by Gigliotti on the plastic body forum. Knowing that the masses on that forum WORSHIP Gigliotti I would have to conclude that the above lost him some worshipers.