Team Cadillac Seals the Deal at Sonoma, Taking Manufacturer’s Title, Top Two Spots in Driver’s

Pilgrim’s Runner-Up Finish Clinches Second in Driver Points

• * Cadillac Tops Volvo for Manufacturer’s Crown, 82-69
• * O’Connell Wins Driver Title by 149 Points
• * First Manufacturer Title Since 2005 for Team Cadillac

SONOMA, Calif. – Team Cadillac came into the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sonoma with a sack full of season awards already in the bag.

They left Sonoma with the whole thing, and it happened on the weekend of Cadillac’s 110th anniversary as a company.

Team Cadillac locked up its first Pirelli World Challenge Series Manufacturer’s Championship since 2005, Andy Pilgrim nailed down second place in the driver point standings with a stellar run in his No. 8 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe and gave the team a 1-2 sweep in the Driver’s Championship.

Pilgrim finished second to Volvo’s Alex Figge in the final GT Series race of the season, just 1.131 seconds behind, clinching a tight battle for second place in the points over Figge’s Volvo teammate, Randy Pobst, who finished third.

Cadillac won the Manufacturer’s Championship with 82 points, followed by Volvo with 69 and Porsche with 68.

Pilgrim earned second place by 62 points over Pobst, with Porsche’s Lawson Aschenbach fourth, 45 points in arrears of Pobst.

Johnny O’Connell had locked up the driver’s title at Mid-Ohio earlier in the month, and he finished 149 points ahead of Pilgrim after finishing fifth on Saturday.

“It’s something to be very proud of,” O’Connell said of his first World Challenge crown. “This is my 12th year driving for GM, the fifth championship I’ve managed to get driving for them, and to do it now in the Cadillac is exciting, because this is an amazing time in Cadillac history.”

Pilgrim was focused on keeping second place in the points, and he had to stay close to the Volvo duo to make sure it happened. Starting fourth, he battled with Aschenbach up through Turn 2 on the opening lap, managing to fend off the Porsche driver for the spot.

The Volvos, led by Figge, took off at the start and kept a slim lead on the Cadillac duo. On the sixth lap, Pilgrim got past O’Connell for third and started in on Pobst. He got him on lap 20, coming into Turn 9, and made the pass stick through Turns 10 and 11.

From there, he chased Figge to the checkered flag. O’Connell, protecting Pilgrim’s rear bumper, lost fourth place to Aschenbach on the 18th of 26 laps and finished fifth.

“I’m just so proud of the whole team and Johnny,” a happy Pilgrim said in Victory Lane. “We got Manufacturer’s, he got the driver’s championship, and if I can’t get the driver’s championship, finishing second behind him to me is like winning the championship also.”

Sonoma’s 2.385-mile, 12-turn layout is not one that favors the long-wheelbase CTS-V Coupe, but Pilgrim explained that while it’s difficult to race here, it’s a challenge he relishes.

“It’s a difficult place to drive, because you’re sliding around everywhere, you really have to pick your moments and every corner has its issues,” he said. “You just have to stay in control, and you have these controlled, lurid slides going on everywhere. So you have to stay within yourself and try to push yourself. It’s a real driver’s race track.”

For the season, O’Connell amassed three victories, nine top-five and 12 top-10 finishes. Pilgrim won once, had an amazing 11 top-five finishes and also recorded 12 top-10s.

O’Connell won at St. Petersburg to open the season, then swept the Detroit Grand Prix doubleheader. Pilgrim won at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“We didn’t dominate,” Pilgrim said of the season. “It was all team. We did not have the fastest cars, we didn’t get pole positions, and it’s all about team and a car that’s reliable. They give us great cars, we do our job and we had to stay out of trouble. “

Cadillac Global Marketing Director Jim Vurpillat was happy at the end of the day.

“You couldn’t ask for a better was to wrap up the season with the manufacturer’s championship,” he said. “That was the goal at the beginning of the season, and when you realize your goal, it feels good. When you have two great drivers like Johnny and Andy, they’re the class of the field and it showed.”

John Kraemer, Cadillac V-Series and Racing Marketing Manager, made the point that Cadillac is once again at the top of the heap on the track.

“When we started last year, we said Cadillac is back, and this is the exclamation point,” he said. “Cadillac is back.”

Brett Sandberg finished sixth in a Porsche, with the similar machines of Brandon Davis, Michael Hedlund and Jeff Courtney right behind. Anders Hainer rounded out the top 10 in an Audi R8.

The season-ending Cadillac Grand Prix of Sonoma will be broadcast at 3 p.m. EDT on Sept. 9 on the NBC Sports Network.

Team Cadillac Focus Is On Pilgrim, Race for 2nd in Driver’s Championship at Sonoma Finale

One More Goal to Meet in Dream Season for Team Cadillac

• * Manufacturer Title All But Clinched
• * Pilgrim Holds 53-Point Lead over Third Place

SONOMA, Calif. – Entering the final race of the Pirelli World Challenge Series on Saturday, Team Cadillac has one more bit of business to attend to.

Having already clinched the Driver’s Championship with Johnny O’Connell and in unassailable command of the Manufacturer’s Championship, the key piece of the weekend’s racing activity is to make it a 1-2 finish in the Driver’s Championship.

Andy Pilgrim holds a 53-point lead over Volvo’s Randy Pobst for second place in the driver standings, and since Pobst will start second and Pilgrim’s Cadillac CTS-V Coupe will start fourth on Saturday, it is vital to the mission to stay close.

“I really want to get second in the points, no doubt about it,” Pilgrim said. “All we can do is make sure that our stuff is as good as it can possibly be. It’s going to be very difficult. The Volvos, if they run flawlessly, they just walk away. Here, with the three slow corners and the fact that they have all-wheel-drive, it’s going to be very difficult.

“I’m going to be giving 150 percent, and we have a great race car. If I can race with them, I’m going to push as hard as I possibly can. It’s an uphill battle, but I’m going to go for it.”

O’Connell said the Volvo advantage is in the all-wheel-drive, which is suited to some of the slower corners at Speedway Sonoma.

“Our Cadillac is good on fast tracks with long, sweeping corners,” he said. “When you have tight stuff, second-gear corners, it certainly doesn’t work to our advantage because we’re a long wheelbase car. The fact that we qualified third and fourth is good, and the strength of this team is our preparation, our engineering and how we perform in the race.”

O’Connell is committed to helping Pilgrim nail down second place in the points.

“Anything we can do to help Andy in his bid for second in the driver’s standings, we’re going to do.”

The Cadillac Grand Prix of Sonoma kicks off at noon today, and will be streamed live at www.world-challengetv.com. The race will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network on Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. EDT.

At least five defense contractors with Southeast Michigan operations are vying for a $318 million contract to supply a special ops truck with weapons and off-road capability that can be deployed from military helicopters.

Engineers and designers at the Madison Heights office of Navistar Defense coordinated that company’s development of the Special Operations Tactical Vehicle, Navistar’s proposal for the pending Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1 program under consideration at the U.S. Special Operations Command.

A business unit of Warrenville, Ill.-based Navistar International Corp. (NYSE: NAV), Navistar Defense collaborated with Science Applications International Corp. of McLean, Va., and South Carolina-based Indigen Armor on that proposal, which builds upon the design of Indigen’s own Non-Standard Tactical Truck.

“It’s a more overt version. Where the (Indigen Armor) truck is covert and designed to look more like a conventional pickup that blends in, this is more oriented to resemble a military vehicle,” said communications manager Elissa Koc of Navistar Defense. “(The military) has asked for an unarmored variant, (but) even our variant has a certain limited amount of armor.”

SOCOM, a unified military command of the U.S. Department of Defense in Tampa, Fla., coordinates clandestine operations and oversees more than 50,000 special operations personnel in the various armed services. It received business proposals in mid-June and expects to award a seven-year contract on the GMV 1.1 by January.

The contract will involve two years of integration and prototype testing followed by five years of fixed-price production. At least 1,300 new trucks are expected to be produced by 2020.

The new fleet is expected to feature several upgrades to SOCOM’s current ground mobility vehicle, which is a variant of the High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee, developed by AM General LLC. It is also designed to allow teams of up to seven special ops soldiers to rapidly deploy from the cargo holds of Army CH-47 Chinook or Marine Corps MH-47 helicopters.

AM General, which has a military vehicle engineering and product development center in Livonia, also submitted a bid on the GMV 1.1, as did Sterling Heights-based General Dynamics Land Systems.

New Hudson-based Pratt Miller Engineering Inc. and BAE Systems Inc., which houses its Heavy Brigade Combat Team business unit in Sterling Heights, are project collaborators with Northrop Grumman Corp. on that company’s Medium Assault Vehicle – Light proposal for the GMV 1.1 program.

Oshkosh Defense, a division of Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corp. (NYSE: OSK), an engineering center in Warren, also submitted a bid on GMV 1.1 but did not furnish details about its proposal to Crain’s.

Northrop and Navistar confirmed their proposed vehicles include a retractable mounted machine gun. Ken McGraw, deputy public affairs officer for SOCOM, said the new vehicle fleet is expected to be transportable via Chinook and have an off-road capability to “previously denied terrain” for special operations.

George Ash, partner and chairman of the regulated industries practice team at Foley & Lardner LLP in Detroit, said local defense contractors are showing increased interest in smaller-scale military projects.

A January contract decision date, Ash said, could be a sign that a vehicle program remains subject to $110 billion in automatic federal spending cuts that kick in Jan. 2 unless Congress works out other means of reducing the federal budget. But McGraw said the award date is not related to sequestration.

“If you have a contract in place, and you have budget money obligated on the contract, you’re probably in good shape if sequestration happens,” Ash said.

“But to the extent you have an award coming after the November-December timeframe, the program could be more tenuous. Congress may not address this issue until after the Nov. 7 election, and there’s certainly a lack of clarity on which direction the budget will take.”

Taylor, O’Connell, Pilgrim Finish 2-3-4 in Round 10, Increase Points Leads

• * Young Gun Taylor Podiums First Time Out
• * O’Connell, Pilgrim Dominate Driver Standings
• * Round 11 Sunday Could Be Key to Title Run

LEXINGTON, Ohio – Team Cadillac came to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with one mission on its mind: win the 2012 Pirelli World Challenge Series GT Manufacturer’s Championship.

It isn’t all the way done, but it is a lot closer to happening than it was.

Jordan Taylor led a 2-3-4 Team Cadillac finish in Saturday’s Cadillac Mid-Ohio Grand Prix, bringing Team Cadillac to the cusp of its first Manufacturer’s crown since 2007.

“We had an objective today, which was to secure our points for the championship,” said third-place finisher Johnny O’Connell. “It was a good day for us. We did what Cadillac needed done, which was to race aggressively, put on a show, look after the equipment and win this Manufacturer’s Championship.”

Unofficially, Team Cadillac holds a 12-point lead over Porsche, 72-60, with two rounds remaining in the series. Volvo is a distant third with 49 points.

“It was a team game today, in the sense of just letting your teammates do whatever,” said fourth-place finisher Andy Pilgrim. “Johnny has the [driver] championship deal, and we were all in the position we needed to be; it didn’t matter what order we finished in.”

Taylor, who joined the team for the Mid-Ohio weekend, earned a runner-up finish to Volvo’s Randy Pobst in his first career World Challenge Series event. The 21-year-old driver is the son of sports car team owner Wayne Taylor.

Taylor moved past Pilgrim into third place on the start, as Pilgrim was balked a bit by one of the Volvos, and led the Cadillac parade the rest of the way.

“We had a good start, jumping past Andy into third place, and that set the tone for the race,” Taylor said. “I knew that once we were in our three-Cadillac row, we were going to be pretty safe there, but once we got to the traffic, I just couldn’t believe how hectic it was.

“It just went crazy every five laps when we would get these sections of cars. Once we were in clean air, the car was solid and the Cadillac guys gave me a great car to run up front. I’m glad we could help in the manufacturer’s championship and I look forward to tomorrow.”

Taylor pushed right up to the back of race-long leader Randy Pobst in the closing stages, but traffic cost him time at key points on the track.

“Yeah, in traffic we were a little better and we were better in the slower corners, but once we got to the straights, it was tough to keep up,” Taylor said. “We’ll make an adjustment for tomorrow and it will be better.”

Pilgrim got blocked again in traffic and that allowed O’Connell to sneak past on the back half of the course, and they stayed that way the remainder of the 30-lap event. There was no overly aggressive racing among the teammates.

“I wasn’t racing Johnny or Jordan,” Pilgrim said. “We came here to get the manufacturer’s championship.”

Pobst and teammate Alex Figge qualified on the front row, and took off during the rare rolling start in Round 10. Team Cadillac settled into line behind them, with Taylor, Pilgrim and O’Connell nose-to-tail.

It stayed that way until Pilgrim was blocked by lapped traffic and O’Connell sneaked past, but the prime objective was to finish ahead of Porsche.

The prime objective was met. Top Porsche in the finishing order was Lawson Aschenbach in sixth. James Sofronas, longtime Porsche campaigner, was driving an Audi R8, and he passed Aschenbach for the spot late in the race to move Porsche back to fourth in the finishing order among manufacturers.

In the driver standings, O’Connell added to his lead over Pilgrim, 1,181-1,000, with two rounds remaining, and Pilgrim widened the gap over Aschenbach in third to 51 points.

The second race of the weekend’s Cadillac Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio will begin at 9:55 a.m. Sunday and will be streamed live online.

O’Connell Heads to Season Finale with Large Driver Point Lead

• * Taylor Fourth, Pilgrim Fifth in Wet Round 11 Race
• * Team Cadillac Holds Top Two Spots Among Drivers
• * Cadillac Leads by 10 in Manufacturer Battle with One Race Left

LEXINGTON, Ohio – Team Cadillac missed the podium on Sunday during a wet, slippery and chaotic Cadillac Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio, but that’s OK: the Pirelli World Challenge Series Manufacturer’s Title is within clinching distance with one race remaining.

The driver’s championship is all but locked up, as Johnny O’Connell heads to the series finale at Speedway Sonoma with a 176-point advantage over teammate Andy Pilgrim.

In the Manufacturer’s race, Cadillac leads Porsche by 10 points, 75-65, with one race to go, the season-ending Cadillac Grand Prix of Sonoma on Aug. 25-26. Porsche faces an uphill battle to overtake the potent Cadillac CTS-V Coupes driven by O’Connell and Pilgrim.

On Sunday, Round 11 of the World Challenge Series went off as expected, given the rain that drenched the track all morning.

The all-wheel-drive Volvo team raced to a second straight victory on Mid-Ohio’s 2.4-mile layout, with Randy Pobst and Alex Figge taking the top two spots. Lawson Aschenbach used his rear-engined Porsche to take third ahead of the Cadillac CTS-V of Jordan Taylor.

Pilgrim finished fifth in his CTS-V Coupe, and O’Connell slipped back to seventh at the finish of the 22-lap, 50-minute event.

After a single-file, rolling start, the Volvos went to the front and stayed there, leaving Team Cadillac third through fifth in the opening laps. Taylor hung with the leaders for several laps, but the all-wheel-drive cars just drove away in the slippery conditions.

“It was interesting,” the 21-year-old said later. “It was my first time in one of these cars in the wet, so I had to learn that the first couple of laps. I was trying to keep up with the Volvos, and I thought we could have stayed with them for a while, but four or five laps in, they just started pulling away.”

That left Taylor in the position of holding form for Cadillac’s title hopes. He did, but late in the race Aschenbach was able to get by for third.

“I tried to hold my position, because I knew that all we had to do for the championship was stay ahead of the Porsche,” Taylor said. “He [Aschenbach] eventually caught us, he was quick in the wet, but at least we were able to stay close to him.”

It was a simple matter of power at the end: the Cadillac had it, but couldn’t get it to the ground. The Porsche could get back to the throttle sooner and that proved the difference.

“It was just power down,” Taylor said. “Those cars, with the engine in the back, they can just get to power so well. We were even through the corner, but coming out he could get the power down without an issue and just out-accelerate me. It wasn’t a good battle, so I let him go and decided to stay close because I didn’t want to wind up in the gravel.”

O’Connell and Pilgrim fell victim to Aschenbach on his run from sixth to third, and Pilgrim logged his second straight fourth-place finish at Mid-Ohio and third in the last four races.

“This track is very difficult in the wet,” Pilgrim said. “Because of the patching they’ve done over the years, it makes it almost impossible to race in the wet here. There’s only one line the cars can use, and that’s all the way on the outside. If anyone tries to go on the inside and tries to pass, they’re just going to crash into the guy outside of him. It makes it a one-lane race track, very slippery. Everyone was slipping and sliding.”

Pilgrim said the 55-car field did a great job racing in the conditions.

“It’s a tribute to the guys out there that we went green for most of the race with one yellow,” he said. “I don’t know any other series that could manage to get 50-plus cars around the race track in those conditions at Mid-Ohio and have one yellow. I think everybody deserves some credit for that. “

O’Connell slipped back to seventh at the end.

“That’s the first time we have run these cars in the wet, and we gathered data,” O’Connell said. “I don’t think any of us were very happy with our cars, especially at this track, because of the amount of pavement changes and sealant. You have to have your car right.

“We had great Cadillacs yesterday, and the strength of Cadillac is its engineering. This is a lesson that we’ll learn from, and if it rains again, we’re going to be much stronger.”

In the driver standings, O’Connell has 1,259 points to Pilgrim’s 1,083. Aschenbach closed the gap to 39 points behind Pilgrim, and that spot is still under contest.

James Sofronas was sixth in an Audi, while Mike Skeen drove to eighth in a Nissan. Tomy Gaples was ninth in a Corvette and Jeff Courtney rounded out the top 10 in a Porsche.

The Cadillac Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio will be broadcast Aug. 25 at 1:30 p.m. EDT on the NBC Sports Network.

Manufacturer Race Tight with Three Rounds Left

Mid-Ohio Rounds Key to Team Cadillac Title Hopes; Manufacturer Race Tight with Three Rounds Left

Jordan Taylor Joins Team Cadillac for Rounds 10-11 on Legendary Course

• * Cadillac Leads Manufacturers By 6 Over Porsche
• * O’Connell, Pilgrim Still Lead Driver Championship
• * Team Returns to Site of First Victory Last Season

LEXINGTON, Ohio – A year ago, Team Cadillac came to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course without a victory. It left with its first, and that moment in time has morphed into a full-on championship challenge.

Since then, Cadillac CTS-V Coupes in the hands of Johnny O’Connell and Andy Pilgrim have been consistently near the top of the result sheets in Pirelli World Challenge Series competition, winning five times and logging podium finishes.

“The reason for our success this year is all the hard work the engineers have done in the offseason,” said O’Connell. “We finished second in the manufacturer’s championship last year with a car that was brand-new; we developed it through the season and then had the winter to improve on it. The engineers have done a tremendous job with the car.

“My job is pretty easy: just go out there, drive fast and be smart.”

That’s going to be a key element this weekend in the Cadillac Mid-Ohio Grand Prix, especially the smart part.

“It’s a track that usually rewards the Porsche, lots of tight stuff, change of direction,” O’Connell said. “Our Cadillacs tend to like higher-speed stuff.”

Speaking of speed, there’s a new addition to Team Cadillac this weekend, in the form of Jordan Taylor. The 21-year-old driver is the son of legendary road racer Wayne Taylor and currently drives a Chevrolet Camaro in another series and the Corvette in endurance races.

“We’re excited to have him,” said Team Director Steve Cole. “We’ve done some testing with him in the past and he’s really quick and a great kid. I think with the championship as tight as it is, this gives us a chance to put some more cars between us and our main rivals at Porsche. He’s a great addition to our program.”

Taylor, for his part, also joins the Corvette team for endurance races, and has a solid background in the sport through his father and brother Ricky. He won the pole and finished third here in 2012, in another series.

“It’s exciting,” Taylor said. “I’ve been watching them since last year when they returned to the World Challenge Series, and they got their first win here last year. It’s cool to come back to this track, it’s pretty special for the brand and for the whole team. I’m excited and looking forward to the weekend.”

Working with O’Connell and Pilgrim is a good opportunity, he said.

“Those are two guys that are pretty much legends of the sport, so to be driving alongside them, looking at their data and listening to their feedback is pretty much priceless,” he said. “You can’t get that anywhere else. Driving with them, learning from them, it’ll be a good experience.”

So will being on the track with a ton of cars, which is a hallmark of the Pirelli World Challenge Series.

“It’s a super-challenging track, and with 55 cars on the track in World Challenge, it’ll make for a really exciting event,” Taylor said with a grin.

Pilgrim, the lead driver for Team Cadillac since the program began in 2004, welcomed the youngster to the team.

“In 2004-2007, we had three cars at least half the time, so for me, it’s not different,” Pilgrim said. “Everybody works together, we’re a team, and we know what the job is: to get the manufacturer’s championship for Cadillac. That’s what we want.

“You can be a little more aggressive if you know there’s a couple of cars out there instead of just one. He’s a good kid, very quick, and he’ll be right there.”

Having a third Cadillac on the track will definitely help fend off a bevy of Porsche’s that are lurking just behind the CTS-V Coupes in the manufacturer and driver’s points.

A disappointing weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Canada put the brakes on what had been a near-perfect run toward both titles. Flat tires in both races, one for Pilgrim and one for O’Connell, snatched two sure podium finishes from the team and tightened the manufacturer points considerably.

After leading by 11 points over Porsche following Round 8, O’Connell’s flat tire sent him from second to 10th in the roundup, while Pilgrim finished fifth. Team Cadillac left Canada clinging to a six-point lead over Porsche.

Things are much brighter on the drivers’ side, with O’Connell leading Pilgrim by 177 points with three races to go. Pilgrim is 33 points clear of third-place Lawson Aschenbach.

Both races of the Pirelli World Challenge Cadillac Mid-Ohio Grand Prix will be streamed live online. GT, GTS and Touring Car drivers will take to the track for two races, the first, Round 10 of 2012, scheduled for August 4 at 5:15 pm, and the second Round 11 race set to take place on August 5 at 9:55 am.

The # 4 Corvette Racing crew did an awesome job this morning on Canada AM

As mentioned, this show airs nationally across Canada – it’s our version of Good Morning America.

Here’s a link to the clip.

http://canadaam.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=722973&playlistId=1.883374&binId=1.815911

Please pass along our thanks to the crew and Gary Pratt for making this all possible.

Thanks also to you for arranging the fire suits for the show’s hosts – it definitely added some authenticity & colour to the piece.

The show’s producer said it was “one of the best segments we’ve done all summer.”

All the best to the #3 & #4 drivers and crew for a safe and successful weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Regards,

Jerry Priddle

Accelerate Marketing & Communications

Historic Organizations Join Forces

The Bridgehampton Racing Heritage Group (BRHG) is proud to announce their association with the

venerable Bridgehampton Historical Society. Together the two groups will share the vision of

preserving and protecting materials that commemorate nearly a century of automobile racing at

Bridgehampton NY.

Guy Frost, who founded BRHG when the hillside racing circuit was threatened by residential

development in 1981, explained the goals of this new alliance. “Working together with the Historical

Society’s Executive Director John Eilertsen, we intend to build a broad collection of memorabilia related

to the history of auto racing on Long Island. Inspired by the opening of the ‘Bridgehampton Race Course

for Sports Cars’ in 1957, we will be stepping up our efforts to archive and preserve racing artifacts, films

and artwork for the enjoyment of future generations. For over 50 years BRHG members have collected

memorabilia that illustrate the history of racing at Bridgehampton. By joining with the Historical Society,

the collection and preservation of these materials will continue with a renewed and defined purpose.”

This new alliance will better serve to illustrate a time when the best race teams from around the world

came to Eastern Long Island to compete on the 2.85 mile long hilltop circuit that became known simply

as “The Bridge”. From 1957 through its demise in 1998 (now The Bridge golf course) many hundreds of

professional and amateur racers attempted to tame the twisting ravines, and then put the “pedal to the

metal” for a long hilltop straightaway only to be confronted with a dramatic downhill curve that separated

the men from the boys – truly a spectator’s delight as well.

On the 55th anniversary of the opening of The Bridge, BRHG’s display will enhance the Historical

Society’s Annual Road Rally that celebrates an earlier era when racing took place on the hamlet’s local

roadways.

Anyone in possession of Bridgehampton racing artifacts is invited to show or donate materials for

permanent archival preservation.

Admission is free and the events take place all day long at the Historical Society grounds on Montauk

Highway in Bridgehampton village on Saturday, October 6, 2012.

Coming off Detroit Sweep, Team Looks to Add to Driver, Manufacturer Point Leads

• * O’Connell, Pilgrim 1-2 in Driver Points, Cadillac Leads Manufacturers
• * It’s a Weighty Issue for O’Connell
• * Mechanical Issue Leads to Spare Car for Pilgrim

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario – Team Cadillac driver Johnny O’Connell has always said he liked Canadian Tire Motorsport Park because it was a test of driver and machine…and mostly driver at that.

Add in the danger factor, and you’ve got one of the all-time great motorsports venues in the world.

O’Connell and teammate Andy Pilgrim will pit themselves and their potent Cadillac CTS-V Coupes against the track and the rest of the Pirelli World Challenge Series field in this weekend’s Sports Car Doubleheader, seeking to further distance themselves from same.

“I love the place,” O’Connell said. “I’m always excited to come here. This place favors a driver who not only has smooth technique, but also great confidence in his car and his abilities. Falling off [the track] here usually means a big wreck, so there’s a danger factor in there as well. It’s the biggest danger factor of any track we go to.”

O’Connell has had success on the 2.459-mile course, winning seven times in a Corvette and finishing second here last year in the return of Team Cadillac to the series.

Pilgrim, likewise a veteran of the Corvette program and Cadillac’s team leader since the program began in 2004, found that danger factor in the first practice session Friday morning. Coming into the blind, off-camber Turn 2 at speed, a mechanical issue in the right front slung his No, 8 CTS-V Coupe off the track and into the tire-and-concrete barriers.

Pilgrim emerged battered but otherwise unhurt, and the crash damage was such that the team was forced to the spare car for the rest of the weekend.

He too feels that Canadian Tire Motorsport Park is a driver’s track.

“Without a doubt,” he agreed. “It’s all about momentum here. Don’t use the brakes, stay off them as much as you can.”

Both drivers were on the podium here last year, and Pilgrim is veritable top-five machine, collecting six such finishes in seven races here for Team Cadillac since the program began in 2004.

Getting top-fives, always a good thing in a series as closely matched as the Pirelli World Challenge, is the goal every weekend for Team Cadillac. With Pilgrim’s switch to the spare car and the fact that O’Connell’s CTS-V will be carrying the maximum REWARDS weight of 224 pounds makes that problematical.

“I’m depressed coming here maxed out on weight,” O’Connell revealed after sweeping both ends of the Cadillac V-Series Challenge at Detroit three weeks ago. “The biggest problem is the fall-off you get in the car. You can get eight to 10 decent laps, but the additional weight makes you easy pickings for cars that don’t have it.”

What he and Pilgrim do have, entering Rounds 8 and 9, is a stranglehold on the points. O’Connell, on the strength of three victories in the first seven races, leads the driver standings by 128 over Pilgrim, who has one victory at Long Beach.

On the manufacturer’s front, Cadillac leads the way with 56 points to 47 for Porsche with five races remaining.

Two victories and three podium finishes at Detroit gave Team Cadillac eight podiums in the 2012 season.

Pilgrim said this weekend’s events are an excellent chance to keep what they have and go on toward the championship.

“Johnny is in great shape for the championship, and the manufacturer’s championship is the key,” Pilgrim said. “We had a great weekend in Detroit, so we need to maintain our advantages in both areas. We need to get as many points as possible, do the best we can.”

The Sports Car Doubleheader will kick off Saturday at 1:15 p.m. EDT for Round 8 and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday for Round 9. Both races will be streamed live.

CTS-Vs Continue to Pull Away in Manufacturer’s Points over Porsche

• * Pilgrim Has Flat Tire, Finishes 10th
• * Team Preps Backup for Pilgrim in 17-Hour Thrash
• * O’Connell, Pilgrim Still 1-2 in Driver Points

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario –Sometimes you’re good, sometimes you’re lucky. Sometimes, no matter what you do, it’s not going to work out well.

Team Cadillac drivers Johnny O’Connell and Andy Pilgrim ran the gamut of those emotions on Saturday during Round 8 of the Pirelli World Challenge Series at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

O’Connell, racing with the maximum amount of penalty weight at 224 pounds, brought his No. 3 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe home second in the 50-minute race, capitalizing when Pilgrim’s No. 8 CTS-V Coupe had a left front tire go flat with less than 10 laps remaining.

Pilgrim got the car around the track and into pit lane, where the Cadillac Racing/Pratt Miller crew changed the offending Pirelli PZero and got back out to finish 10th, one lap down.

“I think I would have followed Andy home, but he had bad luck,” O’Connell said. “He had bad luck yesterday with the primary car, bad luck today with the flat tire. Otherwise he would have had me.”

Pilgrim said all was well until the final restart, after the second-running Volvo of Randy Pobst blew an engine and burst into flames on the back side of the 2.459-mile course. As he came down for the restart, he felt a vibration he could not diagnose.

“I had a really bad vibration on that last restart and I didn’t know what it was,” a frustrated Pilgrim said. “It happened all the way through the corner so I couldn’t really pinpoint what it was, and then I knew it was a flat tire. We had some kind of separation or something, and it just happened at a bad time.”

Pilgrim was keeping leader Mike Skeen in sight after O’Connell, who thought he had a flat tire as well, let him past just before the accident with Pobst on lap 10. Nine laps of clean-up and car removal later, the final restart of the day set in motion the drama that cost Pilgrim another podium finish at CTMP.

The car Pilgrim was driving was the backup CTS-V, after he had a mechanical issue in Turn 2 during practice in his primary machine. The resulting contact was too heavy to fix on-site, so his Team Cadillac crew spent 17 hours changing it over.

O’Connell soldiered on, keeping ahead of the Porsche duo of Steve Ott and Lawson Aschenbach over the final nine laps.

“We were good, and running third,” O’Connell recounted. “The Corvette was pulling away, the Volvo (Pobst) was pulling away, but some years you just get lucky. I thought I had a tire going down, but I might have gotten into some oil or something like that. I let Andy go by, because my car felt wrong. But then we had that long caution which brought everyone back together, and my car was good.”

O’Connell had a scare on the initial standing start, as he went side-by-side with Volvo’s Alex Figge into Turn 1. As the cars hit the apex, Figge’s car twitched sideways into O’Connell’s rocker panel, then did a 360-degree spin to the outside gravel trap.

“I thought I had given him enough room, but I came to find out later he had a problem with his car,” O’Connell said. “I was a little worried there.”

Despite Pilgrim’s struggles, it was a good day for Cadillac. Job one, staying ahead of Porsche for the manufacturer’s point lead, was accomplished, and Team Cadillac leads by 11, 63-52, with four races remaining in the season.

“[It was a] great day for Cadillac,” O’Connell said. “You win races and championships by being consistent and we are being consistent.

“We helped ourselves. We are doing a good job and not making mistakes. Other guys are. That’s what you need to do. I’ve been doing this long enough…won a lot of ALMS championships, and I really would like to add a World Challenge championship to those.”

Pilgrim, who already has a World Challenge Series title to his name, agreed.

“We were having a good day, we were ahead of the Porsches and that is the key to winning the manufacturer’s title, and then we had the tire problem. The car was good, too.”

As good a day as it was in the manufacturer’s race, the driver points are even better for Team Cadillac.

O’Connell’s point lead ballooned to 191 over Pilgrim, 1,011-820, and Pilgrim leads by 60 over third-place Lawson Aschenbach.

Skeen won the race in a Corvette, making it three straight in World Challenge competition north of the border. O’Connell was second over Porsche’s Steve Ott, with Porsche’s Aschenbach fourth and Tony Gaples fifth in another Corvette.

Action on Sunday begins at 9:55 a.m. EDT with qualifying for the GT Series, and Round 9 is scheduled to begin at 2:45 p.m. Round 9 will be streamed live.