Crawford Looks Strong for 24 Hours . . .

The Crawford SSC2K-Judd will start the 40^th running of the Rolex 24 on Saturday in  a strong third place after a series of fast qualifying laps from Holland’s Jan Lammers. In the short 15 minutes qualifying session Lammers recorded a 1m 42.478 (125.061 mph) lap to finish just 0.4 sec slower than the pole position car .

Afterwards Lammers , a former winner at both Le Mans and Daytona for Jaguar said “I was really happy with my lap but even so I did get some traffic, we might have gone a little faster.

“But this is not important, what matters is that we have a really good car for the race, it feels very comfortable and all the changes that have been made since the test have been very positive. There is no question that we are strong and we have twenty-four hours to pass the two guys in front.”

Although there are more qualifying sessions to come tomorrow (Friday) prior to the race’s 1pm start on Saturday, the top 35 spots from qualifying are locked in.

There was more good news for the team in the 2 hour evening/night session when Jan’s two team mates Johnny Mowlem and Winston Cup star Tony Stewart both had long stints in the car. Although both had driven the car in the early January test , this session gave both a chance to have longer runs.

For the first half of the session Mowlem, a graduate from GT cars and racing a prototype for the first time was amongst the three fastest cars on the race track and his times dipped into the 1m 44sec bracket in the dark.

Stewart also got to grips with the Crawford & Crawford Composites built, WorldCom sponsored car and brought his times into the 1m 45 sec area. Considering both drivers lack of experience in a prototype , their times emphasized the progress the car and the team have made.

Commented Team Owner Max Crawford, “This has been a good day for us, we have proved the car is world class. I am delighted with the job all three drivers have done. We’ve been problem free throughout practice and qualifying and the changes we’ve made have all been positive.”