Charged to 3rd on Lime Rock Park grid

© Wes Duenkel

Rum Bum Racing returned to GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge competition at Lime Rock Park looking for redemption after the team spent countless hours over the last week repairing the No. 13 Rum Bum BMW that had suffered extensive damage at Virginia International Raceway. 

Those efforts were well rewarded in today’s qualifying session when Nick Longhi put down a quick lap-time of 58.251 seconds to start tomorrow’s Memorial Day Classic from inside the second row.

While the day did not get off to as quick of a start as the team had hoped due to ABS issues in the morning practice session, the Rum Bum Squad worked quickly to resolve the problem and had the BMW back up to speed to run in the top-five throughout the second practice. Both Longhi and co-driver Matt Plumb laid down some quick laps to complete the session in the third position.

“We had a brake issue that was a legacy of the crash at VIR, but the Rum Bum guys got it figured out,” said Longhi. “The brake problems this morning cut into our practice times pretty severely, so it was the second time in two races that I haven’t had many practice laps before qualifying.” 

Longhi would strap in for the 15-minute qualifying session and click off consistently fast lap times as he maneuvered through the twists and turns of the high-speed 1.50-mile track. With his best lap time just a scant 0.428 seconds off the pole time, Longhi will start the 2.5-hour race from third on the grid.

“I was a bit conservative during the qualifying run because the guys put so much effort into turning this car around that I didn’t want to jeopardize anything by putting a wheel wrong,” commented Longhi. “I have to thank the entire Rum Bum Racing team – Joe Varde, John, Bob, Sean and Ed – and everyone else. This was a destroyed car a week ago, so it’s pretty cool that it’s back together now. We have a good starting spot for the race and we’ll build from there." 

Rum Bum Racing will take the green flag for the Memorial Day Classic tomorrow at 3:30 PM local time.