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APR Motorsport Dominates at Watkins Glen
Monday, June 8th, 2009 You Tube Video:
Watkins Glen, NY: Capping off a nearly perfect race weekend, APR Motorsport came away from Watkins Glen with the team’s first-ever victory and the first professional U.S. road racing victory for any VW in over 25 years! The APR team also owned the front row of the Street Tuner grid with an amazing 1-2 performance in qualifying.
Starting from Pole Position was Ian Baas in the #171 APR/Gunther/Motul/IAV/BBS Volkswagen GTI while Mike Sweeney started the #181 APR/Motul/IAV/BBS Volkswagen GTI in second place. From the drop of the flag, both APR drivers were able to establish a small gap to third place and began an intense battle for the lead. “The car was so perfect today. Mike and I had a good fight for the lead but we knew there could be no contact.” said Baas. As the APR team got closer to the pit window a small electrical problem began to cause intermittent power loss on #171 and forced the team into the pits. While completing the driver change and refueling, the APR technicians found and repaired the issue costing little extra time. Josh Hurley then began working back toward the lead, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process. Unfortunately Hurley was given a stop-go penalty with about thirty minutes remaining for jumping a restart. After being relegated back to 18th position, Hurley completed a series of qualifying laps to bring the #171 VW across the stripe in 6th place. Hurley said “I was pushing like crazy to get back to the lead! That penalty was devastating, and I am very sorry for it. APR Motorsport put a car under me that was simply amazing and I tried to recover the most points I could. We should be strong at Mid-Ohio and hopefully we can earn a win there.”
For #181, the road to victory lane was a little smoother, but not much. Sweeney was beginning to run out of fuel when a full-course caution came out and sent a wave of panic through the APR pits. The team was able to use the rules to their advantage and brought the car in out of sequence for a brief splash of fuel before rejoining the field at the back of the pack. Then a lap later, Sweeney was able to pit in sequence with the rest of the field and Dion von Moltke took the wheel after some fast pit work by the APR crew. Von Moltke made steady progress toward the front of the pack for several laps when another caution bunched the field. When the officials called for the ST cars to pass the pace car and re-catch the field, the APR team was ready for it and sent von Moltke forward gaining a position as other teams failed to relay the “wave-by” information to their drivers. Once the order was sorted out the race was restarted. “I really don’t know what happened at the restart. There was a bit of a shuffle during the wave-by and a little confusion. Once the race was back underway, I pushed very hard and was able to pass Randy going up the hill in the esses.” said von Moltke. From that point on, the #181 GTI was simply untouchable. After taking the lead, rain began to fall on the majority of the track and von Moltke drove cautiously with Pobst closely behind. “It was definitely quite a challenge with immense pressure for the final 30 minutes from Randy Pobst, mixed in with a crazy rain conditions on different parts of the track, so every lap at every corner you had no idea what was coming up next. It took some serious mental toughness so thankfully I had my Performance Drink before I got in the car!” said von Moltke. After the race, Sweeney said “Unbelievable. I am so happy to grab this first win for APR with Dion, but it would have been a little easier on the nerves if the race had been less interesting! There was no stopping my teammate today, and the best crew in KONI now has their first win! Go APR!”
The team would like to thank its partners Motul, BBS, Status, IAV, Team Janica, Performance Drink, and Gunther VW.
Keep up with the latest news and information about the APR Motorsport team at www.goapr.com. The next race is at Mid-Ohio on June 19-21, 2009. Tickets and live timing and scoring for the race can be found at www.grand-am.com. |
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APR Motorsport at Lime Rock: Pole Position to the Podium!
Friday, May 29th, 2009 You Tube Video:
Lakeville, CT: The APR Motorsport team again had a very strong showing at the Lime Rock round of the 2009 KONI Sports Car Challenge. The team made rapid progress dialing in the #171 and #181 VW GTI’s to suit the newly repaved circuit throughout the limited practice sessions. The end result of the hard work was putting the #171 GTI on pole for the start of the race, the team’s first pole position of 2009, and qualifying #181 solidly in the top ten.
Starting the race, at the front of the grid, was Josh Hurley in the #171 APR/Gunther VW GTI. About pole position (his first in KONI competition) Josh Hurley said, “We had a transmission fail in the final practice, just before qualifying. The APR Motorsport team was absolutely amazing; not only for getting the car put back together before qualifying, but that we were third in line for the start of the session! We worked very hard on setup and this was the best set-up race car I have ever driven.” In 9th position after qualifying, Mike Sweeney in the #181 GTI put in his fastest time of the weekend and said, “I managed to put together a good lap but traffic held us up. By the time I found a clearing, the track temp had risen too much. I tried to get the best out of the car but we are starting near the front of the grid.”
Right from the start, Hurley was locked in an intense three-way battle for the lead. After a few lead swaps, the #171 took the lead on lap 41 and stayed there until the pit stop on lap 65 for a driver change, new tires, and a full fuel load. Before the pit stop, Hurley put in a series of “qualifying” laps to stretch his lead to nearly 3 seconds over the second place car. About his stint, Josh said “The car was great. We had a specific race strategy and just stuck to it. Glen (Bocchino) and I had an intense battle early on but thankfully it settled down after a while!” With Ian Baas in the #171 for the second half of the race, the team was looking to be a favorite for a victory. Baas was effective in managing the race from the lead and drew out a 3 second gap on second place before a caution closed up the field. Baas led a race-high 59 laps. After the restart, Baas was under pressure from several cars eventually giving up the lead. While lining up a pass to retake the lead, another full-course caution meant the race was going to finish under yellow. “This is absolutely heartbreaking to finish in second place. The timing of the full-course caution at the end was devastating and given another green flag lap, I certainly could have retaken the lead. We ended up on the podium with good points while our championship rivals had poor performances so we closed up a bit. We will be in the hunt at Watkins Glen, maybe it will be our first win!”
Meanwhile, in the #181 GTI, Sweeney made a good start but after an altercation with lapped traffic, lost a couple of spots. “Our strategy was to let the race come to us and I was on cruise control in 6th place. I really have no idea if the other driver even saw me behind him in the several turns I was attempting to overtake.” Just before the planned pit stop for #181, a faulty fuel pump connector stopped the car on course. By the time the problem was rectified, Sweeney had been lapped several times and turned the car over to Dion von Moltke. Von Moltke then began a string of fast laps, quite often being the fastest car on the track for the majority of his stint. While making steady progress, the same electrical issue resurfaced and forced another stop for repair. Von Moltke said, “We had a car capable of winning today and our lap times prove it. We have had some bad luck in the past two events but the team is working hard to make sure we are in a position to win the upcoming races.”
The team will return to action at the famous Watkins Glen International Raceway on June 5, 2009. You can keep up with the team www.goapr.com/race. Live timing and scoring can be found at www.grand-am.com |
EP Werks Grand Opening!
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
APR is pleased to announce the opening of a new high volume distributor, EP Werks. APR Tuned is a first class engineering firm, leading the marketplace since its inception in 2000.
EP Werks is dedicated to offering the best performance and maintenance options for your Audi, VW, and Porsche. We are located on East 65th street just off Binford Blvd. We will be offering APR’s patented EMCS technology, which allows our clients to cycle through a range of situation specific calibrations at the touch of a button through your factory equipped cruise control. This is the most innovative option for upgrading the performance of your car without sacrificing anything.
At EP Werks, we only sell the highest quality options that make your car accelerate, brake or turn faster.
EP Werks Vice President, Ian Baas, has been driving Audi, VW and Porsche in America and Europe in the American Le Mans Series, Grand-Am Rolex Series, SPEED World Challenge, Porsche Super Cup and KONI Challenge. Over the past five years, Ian has been accumulating a great amount of knowledge on what it takes to make these high performance machines go FAST! |
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