Tuesday, July 12, 2016 – Fresno, CA – With less than a week between the Sahlen’s 6 Hours of the Glen and the Mobil 1 Sports Car Grand Prix, the entire IMSA Weathertech paddock had a huge job to get their teams and equipment packed up and on the road from New York and set up again in Bowmanville, Ontario only four days later. With such a quick turnaround, the teams had a limited amount of time to get the cars set up and ready to go for the first sessions on Friday, but the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports team and drivers proved to be more than ready for the Canadian circuit.

“The weekend had been really good to us up until the race. The car rolled off the truck really well, so there was very little set up work we needed to do,” explained Tom Kimber-Smith.

"Robert (Alon) got up to speed pretty quick, considering we had limited practice because of the wet, so we knew we had a good car, and had the potential to be really quick in the dry.”

Kimber-Smith’s co-driver Robert Alon took his first laps in the PC car at the 10-turn Canadian circuit over the weekend. Alon had raced at the track two times previously in a Prototype Lites car, but he went into the weekend knowing the No. 52 machine was going to far different, and a lot faster, than his lites car.

“This track in the PC car is pretty awesome. We had fairly limited time on track the first day because of the rain, but got pretty comfortable with the car and the track the second day,” said Alon.

“I started the race from P3. The start was a little hectic, but I was able to maintain my position. I stayed in P3 the majority of my stints, but ended up catching and passing James French right before I came into the pits for my first stint. We came back out in P3 and stayed there until Tom got in. Coming away from the weekend, I feel a lot more comfortable in traffic and think that’s going to help me a lot throughout the rest of the season.”

Kimber-Smith had an impressive run during the final half of the race and was challenging for P1 before taking a hit from a competitor that damaged the right rear of the car, which made the car almost undriveable.

“In the race Robert did a really good job. He maintained P3 for most of his stints, which was great. When I got in the car, we got into P2 pretty quickly. I was overtaking for P1 coming into the last corner, and tried to go around the outside of Stephen Simpson. I’m not sure what he was doing, but he drove right into the side of me, which bent the right rear wheel and that was really it for us,” stated Kimber-Smith.

“With 45 minutes to an hour left I was just holding on for dear life. If I had a clear track, I was able to run lap times consistent with the front runners, but once I got into traffic, the car was pretty horrific to drive, so to come away with third place is definitely positive. It’s not what we were looking for from the weekend, but it’s far better than last weekend, which is what we needed. We’re off to Lime Rock Park in a few weeks, which is my home circuit. We were very dominant there last year and hopefully we can do the same this year.”

The PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports team will compete at Lime Rock Park on Saturday, July 23. Stay tuned for event information and team and driver updates!