Daijiro Yoshihara Instagram – The green flag drops at the O’Reilly Auto Parts four-hour enduro on Sunday, June 9 from 12:35 PM to 4:40 PM ET, will you be tuning in for one of the Midwest’s most competitive road courses?
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course’s founder, Les Griebling, famously said: “A lot of people were building courses and I said we’ll build one that’s a little better. I wanted it to be difficult and it came out my way. It’s very interesting because the driver is busy all the time.”
“Busy” was Griebling’s cheeky way of saying “insanely difficult to master” and the laborious nature of Mid-Ohio’s layout only gets harder when you’re going wheel-to-wheel with 49 other competitors in two distinct classes.
Rhythm is a key attribute here. Get the first in a series of interrelated corners wrong, and you’ll be swallowed alive by the end of it. Although Laguna Seca has more elevation change overall (mostly due to its signature Corkscrew), Mid-Ohio is a more progressive rollercoaster ride throughout. The track boasts 136 feet of total elevation change from its highest point at the Keyhole to its lowest point at Thunder Valley where fast cars flirt with speeds approaching 200mph.
@mtlmtrsprtgrp published its outlook on social media yesterday and the sentiment throughout the garage was clear: they were all smiles for race week. Although its positive pre-Laguna Seca track testing, practice, and stellar qualifying pace didn’t fully translate into points, the team is confident that its time will come.’
This will be @daiyoshihara’s first stint at Mid-Ohio, but he’s already made some observations based on simulator testing. “The track is pretty short, but it seems very technical. I think the lap time difference will be small between us [and GS], so traffic will be another challenging factor.”
Faced with a similar question, @karlwittmer got straight to the point, “Eyes on the prize.” The Yoshihara/Wittmer one-two punch currently sits 6th in the overall championship out of 22 total combatants, just 20 points shy of 5th.
📸: @theghostofmozart
#PitandPaddock #MontrealMotorsportsGroup #IMSA #IMPC #FL5 #Motorsport #DaiYoshihara #KarlWittmer #MidOhio #MidOhioSportsCarCourse | Posted on 05/Jun/2024 02:34:11
