Paul Edwards, of Fort Collins Colorado, and Andy Lally, of Dacula Georgia, drove a faultless race in the Leighton Reese Performance Group fielded #07 Mobil 1/AirJax.com Chevrolet Corvette to finish a strong 5th place finish in the GT category of the Grand-Am Rolex Memorial Day Classic at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut.  

The team struggled prior to the race to find a working setup as Lally and Edwards languished well back in the field during the morning practice.  After making several changes the crew found the sweet spot as Lally qualified the #07 Corvette 5th  on the grid.

Lally started the 2 hour 45 minute race and was called into the pits as the GT field completed their first lap in a strategic move that definitely paid off when the Daytona Prototype of Memo Rojas crashed on the 2nd lap bring out an early caution.   When the remaining GT cars stopped during the caution period Lally had the #07 LRPG Corvette in the lead.

“That was a great call on the part of Tony Dowe and Leighton (Reese),” said Andy Lally of the very early pit stop.  “We weren’t going anywhere early on so we came in as soon as possible and it worked out for us.  It was a great move.” 

Lally led for many laps, but was eventually caught and passed, after a few lead changes, by the race winning car of Adam Christodoulou on lap 46.  Lally was also passed by pole sitter Jordan Taylor on lap 62 as the top three GT cars had opened up a generous gap on the rest of the field.

“He (Christodoulou) was doing a great job out there and so was Jordan Taylor in the #30 car,” said Lally.  “When you add the Daytona prototypes in the mix it is a whole new level of racing and strategy because you have to drive 75 percent of the time in your mirrors. It’s bad but that is racing - you have to pay attention.  We all have the same opportunity to keep our noses clean.”

“If we didn’t have traffic it would have pretty much ended up the way it did.  I did pretty well in traffic, but so did the other two guys.  It did allow us to pull away from the rest of the field so traffic probably helped us open up on the rest of the field but it didn’t really impact the top three.”

Lally made a flawless green flag stop for tires, fuel and to get Paul Edwards into the #07 Mobil 1 Corvette.  Unfortunately the track all too soon went yellow putting the LRPG car one lap down.  They recovered this lap by Grand-Am rule and when the course went green again Edwards was in the 5th position where he would remain for the remainder of the race.

“It was a shame that we couldn’t go green for a little while longer because the LRPG guys did a really good stop,” said Lally.  “They worked real hard but the caution came at just the wrong time.  If the caution had come out 10 minutes later all of the other GT cars would have made their stop under green and we would have been cycled back through to the front on this yellow.  But we got our wave-by so at least we were back on the lead lap!”

Edwards made his final pit stop during another caution with 48 minutes remaining.  Edwards and the #07 LRPG Chevrolet Corvette ran their best laps of the race and weekend but try as Paul and the LRPG Corvette might and as perfectly as they raced, he just couldn’t dent the Mazda stranglehold on the top 4 positions settling for 5th.

“It was good,” Paul Edwards said of the race.  “We did the best we could.  We made a lot of changes this weekend even given the short time frame we had.  It says a lot for the team, they are getting to know this Corvette really well to be able to make all of these positive changes so quickly.  We had a really nice car in the race.  It was the best set-up I drove all weekend.”

“Andy (Lally) did a great job, the team and crew did a great job and our LRPG Mobil 1 Chevrolet Corvette gave it all he could but we have a little deficit that we need to find.” 

It wasn’t so much hot, it was dusty and dirty and I got a lot of dirt in my eyes,” Edwards said of the track.  “But the track is a little different than last year but it was fine and it stayed consistent throughout the race.  I was really learning the track during the race because I only did a few laps in practice this morning.” 

“Overall I am happy,” concluded Edwards of the Memorial Day race.  “We did the best we could and we were the first of the V-8s so it was a good day for Corvette.  Watkins Glen is another day and hopefully it will be ours.”

“We had a great race and both Paul (Edwards) and Andy (Lally) did a fantastic job and the crew was flawless,” said team owner Leighton Reese. “Andy led a whole bunch of laps early.  He can really hustle a car around in traffic, and Paul did a double and set our fastest laps, both of the race and the weekend, late in the race.” 

As positive as the race was for the LRPG team it was still somewhat disappointing that they could have a race where most everything would go their way on a Lime Rock track where they had won two straight but still could not compete for the win.    

“Nether driver put a wheel wrong and didn’t damage the car and the pits stops were flawless,” said Reese.  “That was the upside.  But we were the fastest car with pistons and that is about all you can say.  We had no problems and everything went right but we just can’t run with those other cars.  It is very frustrating.”

Adam Christodoulou and John Edwards led a Mazda 1-2-3-4 sweep to win the race followed by the #07 Mobil 1/AirJax.com Chevrolet Corvette as the LRPG team and Edwards and Lally needed a perfect race just to keep pace.

The LRPG team are scheduled to bring the #07 Mobil 1/AirJax.com Chevrolet Corvette to Watkins Glen for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen next weekend.