The WeatherTech Racing trio of Cooper MacNeil, Bill Sweedler, and NBCSN’s Townsend Bell began their 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans venture on Thursday during practice and provisional qualifying, with Sweedler and Bell aiming to repeat their 2016 triumph in the GTE-Am class, done under the Scuderia Corsa banner.
Their No. 62 WeatherTech Racing Ferrari 488 GTE-Am machine ran without incident during six hours of practice before placing ninth on the provisional GTE-Am class grid.
As Sweedler explained, Thursday was about settling into a routine and establishing a baseline. “We were getting the car sorted today. We were fine tuning the setup and getting our compulsory night laps. We are where we were last year and we won the race last year. We are jelling as a team. Cooper is new, but he fits right in and has a lot of confidence in the car. We will do the same tomorrow and be as prepared as we can be for the race on Saturday.”
Bell added that he had to reacclimate himself with driving at night, and he even made a couple little mistakes involving the cockpit lights and headlights.
“We were getting acclimated to running this new car at night. I forgot to turn on the cockpit lights and then shut the headlights off on the Mulsanne going into the first chicane. It is good to thrash through it and get those things out of the way,” Bell revealed. “This place is intimidating at night, it is a completely different world out there when it gets dark. The balance of the Ferrari is terrific. It is a good race car. Just to have the time to make the little mistakes now is helpful.”
MacNeil, the newest member of the team, who has competed at Le Mans twice in 2013 and 2014, emphasized that making it through the day cleanly was a vital part of their Thursday effort.
“The first day was good. All three of us kept the car clean, away from contact and on the track,” MacNeil detailed. “It is always good when you have a nice clean day of practice. That saves the car and saves the work for the crew. They work hard and don’t need any unnecessary effort going into 24 hours of racing. All three of us ran solid quick laps. I am looking forward to tomorrow.”
WeatherTech Racing resumes their effort on Friday with second official practice.
The focus of the Detroit Monster Energy Supercross round was on the mid-pack battle while Aaron Plessinger pulled away from the field, but when he crashed after hooking his foot in the dirt, the results once more looked like we’ve come to expect, with Chase Sexton, Cooper Webb and Eli Tomac sharing the podium for the fifth time in 10 rounds.Justin Barcia was part of an exciting, four-rider battle in the middle of Detroit’s A-Main. – Feld Motor Sports
For Sexton, Plessinger’s late-race crash was a vindication of sorts. Several times already this season, Sexton has crashed while battling for the lead and the points that has cost him keeps him sporting the red plate. He lost points in Detroit for a different reason, however.
Sexton was allowed to keep the win, but was penalized seven points for jumping in a red cross section of the course. As a result, he dropped four points to Webb and two to Tomac. Sexton is now 17 points behind Webb in the championship hunt.
One week after snatching the red plate from Tomac for the first time in 2023, Webb stretched his advantage by two. With his second-place finish, Webb holds a three-point lead over Tomac, which essentially means both riders control their fate in the coming weeks. Webb continues to have a sweep of the top five this season with his sixth consecutive podium.
Coming off his worst finish of the season, Tomac rebounded to finish third. His eighth-place result last week was partially attributed to a stiff neck that hindered him in traffic and he still suffered some of those same effects in Detroit. Before Plessinger’s crash, he was destined to be the only rider in the three-man title scrum to finish off the podium in Detroit.
It is surprising what one position can do for one’s confidence.
Justin Barcia scored his fourth top-five of the season. He was part of the exciting four-man battle that dominated the middle stages of the race before Sexton and Webb gained a little separation. Finishing less than three seconds behind Tomac, he kept that rider honest for the entire race.
Coming off his first win of the season, Ken Roczen finished fifth. It was his seventh top-five of the season and it elevated him to fifth in the standings.
Hunter Lawrence tied his brother Jett Lawrence with 10 wins each after another dominating ride in the Detroit Supercross race and the results in the points continue to widen. With his fifth win in six rounds and a worst finish of third, Lawrence now has a 35-point advantage over Nate Thrasher with four rounds remaining. Finishes of 14th or better in the final four mains will give him his first 250 championship.
Strong starts have been one of the keys to Hunter Lawrence’s success in 2023. – Feld Motor Sports
Jett will have an opportunity to retake his wins’ lead as Supercross heads west for the next two rounds in Seattle and Glendale, Arizona.
Nate Thrasher earned his third second-place finish of the season with a gap of 7.6 seconds to Lawrence. He won the overall in Arlington earlier this season, but a 15th-place finish in the opening round in Houston and 10th in Daytona hurts his championship chances.
Haiden Deegan scored his second podium and fourth top-five in six rounds of his young career. On his way to that finish, he rode aggressively against his teammate Jordon Smith in the heat race. Fans are getting a glimpse of what his on-track personality might be.
Jeremy Martin continues to be the model of consistency. He has not finished worse than sixth or better than fourth in six rounds now and that has allowed him to close to within two points of third in the 250 East championship standings.
Max Anstie entered the race weekend second in the points, but a hard crash in heavy traffic early in the main forced him to retire after two laps. Earning only one point for the round, he plummeted to fifth in the standings.
The news was worse for Smith, who was dropped out of the top nine in his heat after the altercation with Deegan and failed to advance through the LCQ. In the last chance race, he stalled his engine and had to mount a determined charge. He got only as high as seventh in that race after crashing while attempting to make a pass on fourth-place Jack Chambers.
