ROCK HILL, S.C. (May 28, 2019) – After two challenging rounds of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, CORE autosport is looking to create positive momentum on the streets of Detroit.
Detroit is the second street course of the IMSA season, the first being Long Beach, but that is where the similarities between the two tracks end. More high-speed corners make Detroit a track that rewards handling as opposed to torque.
Only two of IMSA’s four classes will take part in the Detroit Sports Car Classic: DPi and GTD. They combine for a total of 23 entries.
Like Long Beach, the Detroit race will be 100 minutes in duration.
Noteworthy
- CORE finished second at Detroit in 2016 in the Prototype Challenge class with drivers Jon Bennett and Colin Braun.
- The pair narrowly missed a PC podium finish in 2015, finishing fourth.
- The Porsche side of the CORE shop is currently in France preparing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- Detroit marks the second race with ADT as the primary sponsor.
JON BENNETT
Driver: No. 54 ADT Nissan Ligier DPi
“Despite rough finishes at Long Beach and Mid Ohio, we continue to make advances in optimizing the performance of our Nissan DPi. Recent testing has unlocked new performance and we look forward to Detroit and the fast natural circuits ahead in our schedule.
“Detroit is an interesting street circuit with fast corners that flow almost like a natural road course. In contrast, Long Beach has more 90-degree corners with more emphasis on torque and quick bursts of acceleration.
“Since testing at street circuits is impossible, the notes and experience from Long Beach will sharpen our starting setup and session-to-session tuning.”
COLIN BRAUN
Driver: No. 54 ADT Nissan Ligier DPi
“I enjoy the Detroit layout. It’s similar to Long Beach, but Detroit has a good mix of fast, high-speed corners and some slower, more conventional street-course style corners. I like the faster, flowing nature of Detroit for sure.
“Detroit has a lot of fast corners that lead onto long straightaways. A good exit out of the fast corner gives you the setup you need to make the pass going into the next big braking zone. Having a car that works really well in the fast corners helps you get good momentum on the exit and set up the pass. It makes it a technical and fun layout.
“Similar to last year, the first opportunity we had to run the Oreca at a street course was Long Beach. We learned a lot and thought it’d help us be faster at Detroit and it’s the same situation this year with the Nissan. We got a lot of good information at Long Beach and I think we have some good notes that will help us improve at Detroit.”