Clint Field Scores 3 RD P2 Win on Pirelli Tires

Scot Robin Liddell Co-Drives with two Fields for His Second P2 Win Sonoma, California, July 18, 2004 - At the end of the first practice session for the Infineon Grand Prix of Sonoma, Scotsman Robin Liddell stepped out of the Intersport P2 he was sharing with Clint Field after setting the fastest lap and commented, Im knackered. I got to my hotel at 3 a.m. after flying all day and night from England to get to San Francisco. Ive been up for 27 hours. Having won with Clint Field at Mid-Ohio in his first P2 ride, Robin missed Lime Rock, where the Intersport prototype had been heavily damaged because of rear suspension failure, because of a previous commitment with a race in Germany at the Nurburgring. At Sonoma, Field and Liddell started off where they left off at Mid-Ohio, leading every practice session, qualifying on the P2 pole and leading their class all race long except for time lost during one pit stop. Joining Clint and Robin for the Infineon race was Clints dad, Jon, who is usually found behind the wheel of an Intersport P1 ride. However, a chassis failure, luckily discovered while jacking the car up in the paddock, caused the elder Field to withdraw his primary ride and join up with son Clint and Robin to form a successful trio. Clint qualified the car on the pole, Robin set the fastest lap race and Jon drove the most laps during the hottest part of the race. Jon did a really great job, Robin said. It was bloody hot out there and he took it to the finish line. Clints comment: Thats my dad. We had excellent pit work. Everyone drove fast consistent laps and Pirelli gave us great tires. Towards the end of my stint, the track started to get a little greasy, Clint continued. So we changed to a different compound and never had to think about the tires again. In GTS race day started off with a sobering warmup accident involving Dale Earnhardt, Jr. who was sharing a third factory team Corvette with Boris Said. The accident was caused by a combination of a slick race track, cold tires and a full tank of fuel. The Corvette caught fire, Earnhardt quickly exited the car on his own and was then assisted by safety crews. He was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for minor burns. Down to only two cars, the factory Corvette of Ron Fellows and Johnny OConnell took the GTS win, but the 1-2 streak that Corvette has enjoyed this entire season since Sebring was broken when the team car went off the road and spent several laps in the pits repairing front-end damage. The Pirelli-sponsored ACEMCO Saleen S7R, which has been the dominant independent entry in GTS this season, suffered an axle failure about an hour and a half into the race and retired. This allowed the Krohn-Barbour Pirelli-shod Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT driven by Tracy Krohn and David McEntee to sandwich itself between the two factory Corvettes in the cars first outing following a write-off in practice for Mid-Ohio. In GT the Pirelli-sponsored Risi Competizione Ferrari 360 Modena GTC of Ralf Kelleners and Anthony Lazzaro, winners two weeks ago at Lime Rock, never fully recovered from running off the track after being tapped from behind by a P1 car only 11 minutes into the race, but Kelleners/Lazzaro soldiered on to a hard-earned 4 th , missing the podium by one spot. The Pirelli-shod Panoz Esperante of Gunnar Jeannette and David Saelens suffered from a variety of ills the entire race and wound up 9 th in GT. With the Portland Grand Prix only a week away, a jubilant Robin Liddell is looking forward excitedly to once again linking up for another P2 Intersport ride with Clint Field. The aim of this team is to win every race, Robin says. Weve got the car, the drivers, the tires and the teamwork to make this happen. Last year I really struggled at Sears and I was glad to see that the track repaving had erased all my skid marks. The marks the Intersport team came away with at Infineon this year are the kind we want to make all season long. The ALMS moves to Portland International Raceway next weekend for the next event on the calendar at Infineon Raceway, in Portland, Oregon, July 23-25. The race will be televised live on SPEED Channel on July 25 from 4-7 p.m. (EDT). Race fans can also listen to live coverage of the race on the ALMS radio web at www.americanlemans.com.