Neutered Acura teams ready for 2nd half

Acura and its three LMP2 teams (ALMS recently neutered the LMP2 cars so they cannot beat the LMP1 cars and win all the races) have been busy since the Utah Grand Prix with work on and off the track in preparation for the second half of the American Le Mans Series season. That starts this weekend with the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park.

Each of the three Acura-powered teams are slated to test at Lime Rock on Tuesday with 11 other Series teams planning to run as well. The Acura prototypes were on-track early last week at Mid-Ohio and tested for two trouble-free days as they sought to rebound from retirements at Utah. Two of the cars experienced transmission and gearbox problems at Miller Motorsports Park, but those issues were resolved well before the cars hit the racing surface at Mid-Ohio.

The Acura ARXs of Andretti Green Racing (Bryan Herta and Marino Franchitti) and Highcroft Racing (Le Mans GT1 winner David Brabham and Stefan Johansson), and the Lowe's Fernandez Racing Lola-Acura (Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz) each ran nearly 350 miles over the two days.

Acura officials said the focus of the test centered on the 3.4-liter V8 powerplant and the muffler with additional chassis work getting attention as well. Lap times were very consistent between all six drivers as they prepared not just for Lime Rock but also the Acura Sports Car Challenge of Mid-Ohio on July 19-21. ALMS PR