WATKINS GLEN, Ny. (July 2, 2016) – WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.), Leh Keen (Charleston, S.C.) and Gunnar Jeannette (Salt Lake City, Ut.) will start the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen from the sixth row.
The WeatherTech driving trio have adapted to the newly repaved and faster surface of the legendary 3.4-mile, 11-turn Watkins Glen International raceway. The team had to make drastic set-up changes to the white and black Porsche GT3 R from year’s past to accommodate the near billiard table smooth racing surface. MacNeil had the controls of the No. 22 WeaterTech Porsche for qualifying and put in a lap time of 1:48.208 that will have the team starting from the sixth row for tomorrow’s 10:10 a.m. ET start.
“My qualifying laps were pretty good,” MacNeil said. “The car was handling pretty good, it did everything I asked. We don’t have the pace down the straights as much as some of the cars, especially the Lamborghinis and Audis. We have a car that we are confident we can race with tomorrow and I am looking forward to getting the second part of the season going.”
“I think I have done about 10 laps this weekend,” Jeannette said. “The team has made some very good changes to the car since yesterday. I think it will be a little tough competing with the Audi teams this weekend. We will maximize our opportunities on the track and in the pits and see if we can get this WeatherTech Porsche up on the podium.”
“My laps have been good this week,” Keen said. “This newly repaved track has a lot of grip and it is really smooth. We started the weekend with a car that had a lot of push, the rear was over powering the front. We have worked some of that out and I have been happy with the car so far. All of the cars in the GTD Class seem to like this track. All of the times are super-fast. We have seen big changes in lap times from last year. I think we have a good set-up on the WeatherTech Porsche for the race. We are ready to go racing tomorrow.”
“Cooper, Leh and Gunnar all really like the newly repaved track,” team owner, Alex Job said. “All of the times in our GTD Class have been very fast. We have some ground to make up at the start, but the guys like the way the car is handling and we have six hours to get it to the front which is what we plan to do.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 starting at 10 a.m. ET and will run until its conclusion at 4:30 p.m., tomorrow, July 3.
