July 24, 2005

Another Road America Top-10 for Beauchamp

Mike Beauchamp closed out a busy weekend of racing piloting his Van Diemen based open wheel racer to a 10th place position in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) event at Road America near Elkhart Lake, WI Sunday.

Beauchamp was 14th in qualifying with a lap of 2-minutes, 19.6 seconds on the twisty Road America course as he struggled to find the right handling combination on his race car.

“The car started the weekend with a high-speed push and ended the weekend with a really bad high-speed push,” stated Beauchamp. “It didn't seem to matter what changes we made to the chassis - we just couldn't loosen it up enough. The race wasn't too bad. There was quite a bit of bumping on the first lap and I was able to pick up a few spots. Once the tires got up to temperature, the handling went away and I could just hold on and try to defend my position. Fortunately, other frontrunners ran into trouble and I was able to maintain fourth in the points.”

Beauchamp, who features primary sponsorship from EMP, will stay busy taking to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course at Lexington, OH Saturday and Sunday, July 30-31.