Championship Race Heats Up With Two Rounds Remaining

With only two rounds remaining in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, CORE autosport is locked in a tight points battle for the Prototype Challenge Championship. This week, Circuit of the Americas, in Austin, Texas, is the latest opportunity for the team to grow its five-point lead in the standings. It's been over a month since the team's previous race at Road America, where Jon Bennett and Colin Braun finished third. Now it's time to head south and take on the scorching Texas temperatures in search of podium finish number six of the season. Last year at COTA, Bennett and Braun clinched the PC driver championship a round early by finishing second. A similar feat isn't in the cards this year, as the top three PC teams and drivers are separated by a mere eight points with two rounds to go and 36 points available for a win. The Lone Star Le Mans will air live on FOX Sports 1, Saturday, Sept. 19, at 12:30pm ET. Follow live timing, radio and in-car cameras at IMSA.com or on the IMSA App.

Jon Bennett

"Circuit of the Americas is an amazing Formula 1 inspired track in a very interesting town, Austin Texas. It requires attention to detail and discipline to go fast. The Esses and the multiple hairpin corners reward precision and brake zone risk taking. "COTA is a wide open circuit with plenty of run off areas which help improve the driver safety of the circuit. For testing, this encourages experimentation and risk taking. For racing, I prefer a circuit that has tighter layout that rewards precise driving. "COTA can be a hot race for us, even in September. The heat reduces grip and adds strain for the drivers. It's all about preparation; the extreme conditions can bring an advantage to a team who is prepared. "As the last races click off, we are all focused on finishing strong. We don't discuss the championship much, but I think it's in the back of the mind for all of us."

Colin Braun “I enjoy going to COTA. It’s a new style of racetrack, with a wider layout, but still quite a few tight hairpins. That makes for an interesting race. The track is so wide and open, but also has so many tight corners that it makes people optimistic when it comes to passing. That can result in some interesting things happening. Then, mix in all the classes together and the various speeds of our cars and it makes for a race where you have to be really heads up. There are times when someone goes to pass you and think there’s not a chance in the world the move is going to work. The next thing you know, they fly straight through the apex of a hairpin and it’s a calamity. “COTA has always been one of those tracks where we tend not to see very many cautions come out. It’s a challenging place for everyone, from strategy and racing standpoint. We can’t rely on the fact that we’ll get a caution to bunch the field up. It becomes one of those races where every bit of time you lose throughout the race, you have to make up. You don’t get a chance to reset if you have some bad laps. “I feel like for us Prototype Challenge guys, who sit out in the pouring rain when it’s wet, we get a break when it’s super hot, like at COTA. The guys in the GT cars, that were nice and dry when it was raining, now we get to laugh at them when it’s 100 degrees outside. I don’t think the hot temperatures make a difference for us, setup wise though. We’re used to running in that kind of heat at COTA and have a lot of data to go off of. We were in contention to win the race last year, so we know that we have a good place to start setup wise.”

Contact:

pr@coreautosport.com

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