I took the afternoon off and made my way over to St. Petersburg for Friday's ALMS Acura Sports Car Challenge practice and qualifying session and I got to say it was the best $10 I've spent in a long time. The General Admission ticket got me into the stands and paddock area where you can get right up to the teams and watch them go to work.

Olivier Beretta led the GT1 class with a time of 1:09.727 (92.934 mph) to win his 21st career pole position. Johnny O'Connell and the #3 Corvette C6.R team was 2nd in the class at just 0.541 seconds behind the #4 Corvette C6.R. O'Connell's best lap was a 1:10.268 (92.218 mph). Rounding out the GT1 class was the Bell Motorsports Aston Martin DBR9 which ran a best lap of 1:11.532 (90.59 mph).

One interesting part of the video happens at 0:54 seconds when the #4 Corvette is leaving the pits. You will see a yellow Corvette track car and it turns out that it is a Pratt & Miller Corvette C6RS. I saw the front Z06-stlye air vent but the black roof threw me off. Later I saw it parked in paddock and man it is sweet!

I've got tickets for tomorrow's race and will post a recap of the day's events.

Sponsored By:
Bondurant School of High Performance Driving

Related:
[VIDEO] Sebring 2008 - O'Connell Pilots the #3 Corvette C6.R to Historic Win

Technorati Tags:
Corvette | Vette | St.Petersburg | St Pete | ALMS | GT1 | Race