Did you know that the Le Mans-winning Ford GT GTLM car is racing at Lime Rock Saturday, July 23 in the IMSA WeatherTech Northeast Grand Prix?
And that the cars that finished third and seventh and 11th are also here?
The top echelon of international sports car racing – the cars and the drivers – represented by the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class in the IMSA WeatherTech championship, makes its much-anticipated stop at Lime Rock Park.
Lime Rock's Northeast Grand Prix on July 23 is going to be like a mini-mini Le Mans race.
Last month's Le Mans was the pitched battleground of a near re-enactment of the famous 1966 race, when Ford finally beat Ferrari.
On the 50th anniversary of that historic win, Ford did it again: Joey Hand and Dirk Muller in the new Ford GT beat ex-F1's Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander, who were racing the new Ferrari 488.
Those four drivers will be going at it again – hard – at Lime Rock July 23. Not to mention the drivers of the Corvette Racing C7.Rs, Porsche 911 RSRs and BMW M6 GTLMs.
And Connecticut's own Ryan Briscoe – when the Australian married ESPN reporter Nicole Briscoe, they moved to Farmington – is the Ford driver on the hottest streak. He and co-driver Richard Westbrook have won three IMSA GTLM races in a row: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
The July 23 Lime Rock IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Northeast Grand Prix will be an unprecedented grid of world-class cars, teams and drivers.
Friday and Saturday, July 22 & 23, is the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Northeast Grand Prix (a link to weekend schedule PDF is below)
The GT Le Mans category, with the new, Le Mans-winning Ford GTs, the new Ferrari 488s, and the always competitive Chevy Corvette and Porsche 911s, plus the new – and fast – BMW M6, are the stars of the show, not to mention the Prototype Challenge cars and GT Daytonas. There’s also the huge field that makes up the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge (GS & ST) race, plus two Spec Miata races. We are not exaggerating when we say this is the must-do race weekend of the year.
Former Italian F1 star Giancarlo Fisichella -- in the Ferrari 488 GTE GTLM -- will be out for blood trying to stop the FordsCorvette GT cars have had much success at LRP over the years. A Ford win is definitely not a given!It's unnwise to ever discount a BMW's chance of winning at Lime RockBy the same token, Porschephiles are never without hope when it comes to chances of 911s winning at Lime Rock ParkThe GT Daytona divsion is also rife with great cars and drivers, including Dennmark's whiz kid woman racer Christina Nielsen, in with a shout for GTD honors at LRP in a Ferrari 488 GT3
