The 2011 Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series made its fifth stop at Lime Rock park, New England’s historic short track nestled in the wooded foothills of rural northwestern Connecticut. Grand-Am’s Continental Tire Series was part of this year’s Memorial Day Classic with practice and qualifying on Friday and the race on Saturday. Hosting professional road racing on the 54-year-old circuit is a longstanding tradition, with many families camping inside the track for the weekend.

With just seven curves packed into 1.53 miles, Lime Rock Park is the shortest track on the 2011 Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge calendar. However, what it lacks in curves, it makes up with hills. A lap at Lime Rock is a roller-coaster ride that climbs and dives over 65 feet each time around. To avoid congestion on the short track, the two classes in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (GS and ST) ran alternate sessions and separate races.

Located about 200 miles from its operations in Amesbury, Massachusetts, Turner Motorsport considers Lime Rock its home track—and enjoys the requisite home field advantage. Consider this: of the five races held since Grand-Am’s street stock series first visit to Lime Rock in 2006, Turner Motorsport has won four times! Finishing on the podium in every race this year, Turner Motorsport’s Paul Dalla Lana and Bill Auberlen came into the season’s mid-point with a substantial 21-point lead over Multimatic Motorsports’s Joe Foster and Scott Maxwell. It would take a fast car and a flawless race if anyone planned to unseat the current point leaders at Lime Rock.

Without a customary day for testing prior to the weekend, many teams spent Friday’s practice sessions getting their car’s handling fine-tuned. The Subaru Road Racing Team was quickest in the first practice, and Roush Performance topped the second practice prior to the afternoon’s qualifying session. Qualifying was fast and furious with 26 cars packing the short Lime Rock circuit. Since BMWs have won every race at Lime Rock since 2006, seeing #15 Multimatic Motorsports Mustang Boss 302R at the top of the time charts was a surprise. Joe Foster turned a seriously quick 57.823 -second lap with a 94.690 MPH average for pole position. The flier was nearly half a second faster than the number two qualifier, Bret Spaude (Subaru Road Racing Team WRX STI).

Of his lap, Foster said. “We just made a couple of quick setup changes right after the prior practice and they worked perfectly. It’s not stuff that we can use for a race distance, but for three laps it was fine. Honestly, I just kind of scared myself over the entire one lap; it was perfect.”

Coming off of their win at Virginia International Raceway, Jack Roush Jr. and Billy Johnson were looking for another strong performance. Roush qualified his Roush Performance Mustang Boss 302R fourth behind Nick Longhi’s Rum Bum BMW M3. Rob Finlay in the #50 Boss 302R qualified 7th. Three FR500C Mustangs were entered as well, with the #68 Capaldi Racing entry of Tony Buffomante and Kyle Gimple starting 17th, the Panzer/Snyder Fredrick Motorsports car qualifying 21st, and Mustang Challenge veteran Brad Adams and Jim Daniels starting 24th.

After an exciting ST-class race earlier in the day, the fans were ready for the big-bore cars to take center stage. Joe Foster in the #15 Mustang Boss 302R lead Bret Spaude’s Subaru and the rest of the field to the green flag, and held the lead into turn one. Sixty seconds later, the field emerged with Nick Longhi’s BMW behind Foster after snatching second from Spaude. Things settled down at the front for the next fifteen laps until Foster and Spaude made contact while fighting for position. Longhi capitalized and moved to the lead, while Foster shuffled back to fifth, Spaude dropped to third, and Al Carter’s Fall-Line BMW jumped to second. A lap later, Al Carter passed Longhi for the lead.

Surprisingly, there weren’t any caution periods for the first hour of the race. Running on fumes, teams prepared to make green-flag pit stops. Shielding their eyes from the late-afternoon sun, crews watched the pit lane entrance for their driver. Tire changers clutched their tires and blipped their air guns. Fuelers adjusted goggles and lowered face shields. Lollypops swayed in the air like sailboat masts in a harbor. Engines bucking against their pit-lane speed limiters, the drivers filed down pit lane and aimed for their pit box. As each of the cars skided to a stop, fourteen legs sprung off the pit wall and got to work. The crews worked feverishly. When making pit stops, avoiding mistakes is more important than outright pace—but the best teams are flawless and fast.

The Roush Performance crew made up the most ground when their quick pit stop moved Billy Johnson’s #61 Mustang Boss 302R to the lead. Hugh Plumb took the reins from Al Carter in the #45 Fall-Line BMW and tucked in behind Johnson’s Mustang. The #13 Rum Bum BMW with Matt Plumb behind the wheel came out third.

A lap later, Johnson lost the lead to Hugh Plumb, who then lost the lead to brother Matt Plumb. As the laps ticked away, Bill Auberlen in the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW was coming on strong. He passed Billy Johnson for fifth, Hugh Plumb for forth, Ken Wilden (#78 BMW) for third, and Seth Thomas (#79 BMW) for second. By lap 125, Johnson moved his Boss 302R back up to third.

With the checkered flag approaching and some of the car’s handling degrading, the battles for position became increasingly intense. Matt Plumb in the Rum Bum BMW held a small lead over Bill Auberlen, but the following cars were determined to push, shove, beat, and bang their way to the front. Notable casualties of the intense action were Hugh Plumb’s #45 Fall-Line BMW after a heated battle with Joey Hand (#97 Turner Motorsport BMW), and James Cameron’s #50 Mustang Boss 302R. Cameron survived a huge crash after he got loose at the crest of the “uphill,” but his Boss 302R didn’t fare as well. The resultant carnage brought out the final caution laps of the race.

When the race went green for the last five laps, Matt Plumb and Nick Longhi in the #13 Rum Bum BMW brought home the prize. Bill Auberlen and Paul Dalla Lana continued Turner Motorsport’s three-year podium streak with a second-place finish, and Billy Johnson and Jack Roush Jr. finished third.

With their second place finish, Dalla Lana and Auberlen extended their points lead to 27 points over Mulitmatic Motorsports, while Rum Bum’s win propelled them to third in points.

The teams face a few short days to perform maintenance and repairs before the next round at Watkins Glen the following weekend. If the first half of the season is any indication, the closing races of the 2011 Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series will be nothing short of exciting.

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