COMPASS360 ACURAS SECOND AND FOURTH IN QUEBEC

Compass360 Racing's Acuras performed tremendously at the historic street fight in Trois Rivieres, Quebec bringing home another podium finish for the championship-chasing #76 TSX of Billy Johnson and Karl Thomson, and a top-five result for Matt Pritiko as he chases Rookie of the Year honours. 
 

The Thomson/Johnson car sported a new-look livery, featuring a matte black body with flourescent-orange accents. "We're getting a head-start on our 2008 livery and thought, since we have to repaint after the Barber incident, that we'd see what the fans think," noted Thomson. With second practice being rained out, it meant that the qualifying drivers had less than fifteen minutes to acclimatize to the track. Local hero Benoit Theetge qualified his #75 TSX in fourth, five one-hundreds of a second behind the Classic BMW Z4. "I know this track so well, and have won here so many times," said Theetge. "That helped a lot, but also the car was just perfect." Karl Thomson put his #76 TSX in 13th position, less than a second behind second place. "It's not my usual top-ten qualifying, but the field is really tight here, and second to 15th is a difference of just one second," said Thomson. David Tuaty, in the #74 RSX-S was that fifteenth place."The big thing here is brake wear," noted Crew Chief Ray Lee. "Every year it's about car conservation and we see lots of cars dropping out in the last half hour. The key is to have enough car left to drive hard at the end."

For race day, the team decided to try a number of different strategies. The #75 TSX would run up front and try to push the front-running cars and run very long into the race, while the #76 would pit early so that co-driver Billy Johnson could run in clean air, away from the pack. "It was a risky strategy because it meant we would be doing two stops for sure," explained Thomson. "But we knew that if I stayed in the pack, I would use more car than BIlly would running by himself, and we could bounce other cars in the pits. The #74 car split the difference, pitting at the mid-point of the race.The pit strategy of the #76 was mimicked by Thomson and Johnson's main rivals for the championship in the #95 Turner BMW. "We came in, did our stop, and a few laps later they did the same," said Lee. But it was early in the race and what remained to be seen was how each car would last.
TSX #75 meanwhile, ran a comfortable second, pushing the lead i-MOTO TSX of local boys Nick and Kuno Wittmer as hard as Theetge dared. Benoit handed the car to Beau Buisson who continued to push as hard as he could. The duo's day was ended, however, by a broken rear hub that had Buisson returning to the pits on three wheels.

As other cars began to drop out, Johnson continued to pick off places while conserving the car. His pace was matched by the Wittmer brothers, however, and the Turner BMW was nipping at his heels. And the #74 car, with rookie Matt Pritiko at the wheel, continued to rise up the leader board. At the checkered flag, it was the Wittmers first, Johnson's Acura second, and the Turner BMW third. Pritiko in his Acura was fourth. It was the second time the team had two cars in the top five (Mosport was the first, with Johnson/Thomson first and Buisson/Harvey fifth), and was validation of the early-stop strategy (two of the podium teams had made use of it).
The result moves Thomson and Johnson two points closer to the championship lead, just four points back from the Turner duo of Hopwood/Burrows. It's a close fight and with just two races remaining, it's likely to come down to a solid result at the season-closing six-hour event at Virginia International Raceway in October.