SRT Motorports - Viper GTS-R ALMS Race Final Quotes - Long Beach 

April 20, 2013 , SEATTLE -  Gary Johnson – SRT Motorsports Racing Manager
“Well, it’s a little bittersweet. I’m really proud of the team for getting its first podium. The 93 car got beat around a little bit and ended up in eighth-place but the team did the right thing. They had great pit strategy, put us out first a couple of times. I think the real key would have been to have the 93 car up a little higher but honestly the drivers did a great job. The engines were running perfect at the end and, of course, the strategy on the fuel stops really helped us out a lot.”

THIS WEEKEND MUST BE A BIG STEP FORWARD FOR THIS PROGRAM. “Oh for sure, this weekend has been great. It is a huge step forward for us. We know now that we’re competitive just about anywhere. We’ll be looking forward to Laguna and hopefully bring home another podium there.”

Dominik Farnbacher – Driver, No. 91 Fast & Furious 6 SRT Viper GTS-R, Finished 3rd
We’re still learning but we couldn’t be happier with our result, a podium and third-place. I mean five races ago, we were still further back. All in all, it was a great race for us. I think we can all be proud of it.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO BACK UP A GOOD QUALIFYING RUN BY RUNNING WELL IN THE RACE? “That was definitely very important because it was hard to overtake here. We struggled getting by the small cars so it was very important. Strategy was good. We were leading for a long time. Bill (Riley, VP and Chief Engineer, Riley Technologies) and the guys did a good job on the strategy. We did an early driver change so we could avoid that later on. The downside of that was that we ran very long on the tires. They wore off very quickly and on our fuel, we were on the hiccups already. I had to be very conservative to do the last lap. We really had to save fuel so at the end we have to be very happy with our third-place finish. It’s well deserved.”

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU LOST THE LEAD LATE IN THE RACE?
“My rear tires were gone. I really had lock-up problems on the rear. I was braking and the rear was stepping out under braking. I had to give my lead away. The BMW behind me was quicker but next time we know what we have to do. We’ll probably choose a different tire compound.”

WHAT DOES RUNNING SO WELL THIS WEEKEND DO FOR YOUR CONFIDENCE? “A lot (smiles). I mean it’s still a learning process for us and the car is pretty new; it’s not even a season old. I think we will go with a lot more confidence into the next race at Laguna Seca. I think we’ll be a contender for the top spot. Now, we know what to do.”

Marc Goossens – Driver, No. 91 Fast & Furious 6 SRT Viper GTS-R, Finished 3rd
“We were close, I mean 10 minutes from the end we were still P1. If you would have told me that before the weekend, I would have signed for it straight away. It proves that the whole team is working very hard. The entire SRT Motorsports team is getting there, slowly. We shouldn’t forget that it’s only race six and we’re already on the podium and could have won. We might have had some issues with tire management there towards the end of the race but that’s part of the learning curve. We need to learn about all these different types of tires, need to learn about these street courses. It was a totally new game for me here. My task was to keep it up front at the start. It’s a mandatory thing that I have to start the race on the qualifying tires that Dominik used yesterday. Last night they went through a heat cycle and I don’t think they take that very well because my car was really well balanced. The problem was that I had zero grip from them. It’s something that we need to learn about the tires and how they behave during the race, temperature related and everything else. All in all, I think we should be very, very happy.”

Jonathan Bomarito – Driver, No. 93 Pennzoil Ultra SRT Viper GTS-R, Finished 8th
"At the end of the race, it was a little bit of a frustrating day after we got spun. But the big picture is that our SRT Vipers were fantastic this weekend. My hat’s off to everybody. So much hard work has gone into this program. This team has worked so hard since Sebring. We came to Long Beach and qualified 1st and 3rd, put the No. 91 Viper GTS-R on the podium which is a great weekend. I'm really happy for the guys.”

THE 93 CAR HAD A ROUGH DAY TODAY. “We got spun twice, once really late in the race. Kuno (Wittmer) got spun really early in the race which got us behind. We used some pit strategy and ran fast late in the race and brought home a solid finish."

THIS WAS A GREAT BUILDING BLOCK DAY FOR THE 93 TEAM. "For sure. We did all the little things right to improve this weekend as a team. We knew what the track wanted. Everybody pulled their experiences being here and we had fast SRT Vipers right out of the box despite very limited track time. All our success has come from hard work and attention to details. We're getting better each race."

Kuno Wittmer – Driver, No. 93 Pennzoil Ultra SRT Viper GTS-R
“The race was off to a good start and with Marc leading in the 91 and myself in third position, you know, sandwiching the Corvettes was actually a lot of excitement for us. For the first 20, 25 minutes it was going really, really well. The car was working really, really well. The SRT Viper GTS-R was handling outstanding. It was working just in the right direction that we would have a strong finish for this race and just out of the blue, I was turning into corner 11. I guess the number 62 Ferrari just locked up and t-boned me. It put a lot of damage on the car which is unfortunate. We fell back to eighth and that’s where we finished.”