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Curran finishes 2nd for 5th time in '09 at Road Atlanta SPEED World Challenge |
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 September 25, 2009
Braselton, GA
If Eric Curran's string of 2009 runner-up finishes in the SCCA SPEED World Challenge GT Championship are getting to be a habit, at least there could be worse habits.
Today at what seemed to be Road "Hot-Lanta," instead of Road Atlanta, Eric and the #30 Whelen Engineering Chevrolet Corvette finished 6.467 seconds behind Andy Pilgrim, who gave the Volvo S-60 its third win in its maiden season of World Challenge competition.
"As a Volvo dealer in real life, I'm tickled to see the built-for-racing version of the new S-60 doing so well, but I race a Corvette, and that's where my allegiances are on race weekends," he said.
 Starting with the season's opening race at Sebring, Eric has also occupied the podium's runner-up spot at Long Beach, Watkins Glen, Road America, and now, Road Atlanta.
"There was no chance at all to catch Andy unless he made a mistake or the car broke," Eric added. "And Andy just isn't a driver to make mistakes."
Air temperatures in the 90s and heavy humidity, and a wealth of other race cars using the 2.52-mile race track, the result was what Eric felt was a very slippery surface at the end of the race.
"My Whelen Corvette was working great, but this was one of those situations where you could only get so-o-o much traction off the slow corners and that got worse on this hot day," he said.
"The tires started sliding around a lot - you start to realize you can't go around a specific corner as fast as you did two laps ago, because the car's trying to slide out from under you when you go back to the gas. Our Corvette is fast, but not consistently fast at the speed I was trying to run to catch Andy. On a slippery track like we had the rear wheel drive cars will always struggle to be consistent, especially vs. the all-wheel drive Volvos. Four wheels being driven will always be better than two."
Curran started the race on the outside pole next to Brandon Davis, but got a little bit too much wheel spin at the start and feel back a few spots and watched Pilgrim's all-wheel drive car rocket past. "No matter how much engineering a team does, you will never get a rear wheel drive car to take off from a start like an all-wheel drive car on tires with limited traction," he said. "I live in New England and anyone who has driven in the snow her knows what I'm talking about."
Eric had to pass a few cars before he could give his best and hardest attempt at catching Andy. It took seven laps of hounding Brandon Davis and his Ford Mustang, but Eric accomplished that at the end of the 11th lap, then settled into his "place" position behind Pilgrim until the checkered flag flew.
"Getting by Brandon took a number of laps," Eric said. "I set him up for the pass coming under the bridge to the long downhill to the last turn, hung with him on the start-finish straight then went inside him in Turn One.
"That's a very common passing maneuver to make at Road Atlanta, but it takes a lot of real estate to make it happen, and it involves two very fast, very treacherous corners. It isn't at all like out-braking somebody on the back side of the course for a 60mph, 90-degree turn. But once by I set my sights on Andy and drove as hard as I possible could and had a few close moments that at one point were looking like a ride off the track -- a bit scary," he said.
 Eric credited the Whelen Engineering team's decision to revert to the Penske Shocks suspension package as one of the weekend's good moves. "The team has been working so-o-o hard to give Sonny and I the best-possible cars, and they did a great job this week. In our eyes, we won the race, the rear wheel drive race!"
"I have to add that I felt bad when my teammate and car owner, Sonny Whelen, saw the fluid temps in his Corvette start rising real early in the race. But at least he parked the car on the fifth lap, before something was damaged. Sonny was so fast all weekend and really on his game! It's really too bad"
The final World Challenge race is Oct. 9-11 at Laguna Seca, where the SCCA GT and Touring cars will join the ALMS season finale.
WATCH IT ON SPEED TV
The SPEED TV broadcast of the Road Atlanta race will be Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 2pm ET.
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