BRASELTON, Ga. – April 30, 2011 – Keith Carroll took the lead from his outside front row starting spot and never looked back for a flag-to-flag victory in Saturday’s opening Cayman Interseries sprint race of The Mitty weekend at Road Atlanta.
Carroll, who drives his 901 Shop-prepared No. 55 Cayman S that displays the classic yellow livery of a Sandeman/David Piper Racing Porsche 917K, won his second consecutive Cayman Interseries race after also taking a sprint-race victory in 2010s season-ending event in Savannah. Another racing commitment forced him to miss this year’s opener at Sebring last month but Carroll stilled showed up at Road Atlanta this week more than ready to go. Saturday’s victory came down to a last lap battle with reigning Cayman Interseries Champion Lee Davis.
I just had a brilliant start and that made my race, there’s no question about it, it made my race said Carroll, who also scored the first Cayman Interseries win for the Florida-based 901 Shop. It was obvious that Lee was making the gap, we had the white flag and I knew my exit at turn seven was going to be critical. It was OK, we both came out fairly close to each other and I am thinking he is going to have the draft, but I just stayed in the middle of my road, kept my one move if you will, and hit the brakes as deep as I could. I just told myself don’t mess it up and I could see it was clear to turn in, I turned in and knew as long as I kept it together up the hill and down the hill that I was good.
Driving his red and black No. 33 Cayman S that carries the colors of the Advan Porsche 956s and 962s and Luna C Clothing, Davis started third, moved past Mark Sandridge for second two laps from the finish, and was closing on Carroll as the checkered flag flew. It was an absolute blast, Davis said. Running with Keith, I am just so glad he’s out here, and Mark did a fantastic job. Something happened to him at turn seven and that gave me an opportunity to get by. We had some really good racing, they are such short races but so much fun, so you have got to get it done. We try to race clean, and we did, he gave me room and I did the same for him. Just good, clean, close racing and this series is great for that.
Sandridge is debuting this weekend in the No. 49 Cayman S, which is themed after his championship-winning 1994 Team Salad Porsche 911 RSR, and won the pole earlier on Saturday in qualifying after pacing Friday’s practice. He led the field down to the green flag. I was just a little rusty, I haven’t been on the pole for a real long time, Sandridge said. I probably wasn’t in the right gear when I was coming down the hill and Keith just got a little better jump on me. I was lucky to hold the rest of the guys off in turn one, but what a great race. The three of us were dicing back and forth the whole time. I was getting better toward the end, I am a little better long-distance driver, so we’ll see, we will get into the enduro and see if we can catch them, but a great time though. Round 2 of the 2011 Cayman Interseries, the Mitty schedule wraps up with the weekend’s second and final sprint race at 9:15 a.m. and the featured one-hour enduro at 12:45 p.m. Carroll plans to drive solo in the enduro, Davis will share the No. 33 with his professional teammate and coach Ryan Eversley and Sandridge will co-drive the No. 49 with champion professional driver Joe Varde. Sandridge and Varde raced together in the 1990s and won two championships. The No. 49 Cayman carries the same number and livery of the GTU-class Team Salad Porsche 911 RSR the duo drove to the second championship in the 1994 IMSA North American Endurance Challenge.
Source: Cayman Interseries
