Kyle Gimple COTA Pre-Race Report

Kyle Gimple returns to IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge competition this week at Circuit of the Americas – the site of one of his three victories claimed last year while driving the Compass360 Racing Honda Civic. This year, he’ll arrive to the famous 3.427-mile road course outside of Austin with the new No. 75 AERO Advanced Paint Technology/Children’s Tumor Foundation Audi S3.

Circuit of the Americas (COTA) has suited Gimple well in his previous two racing outings at the track. Prior to his win there last year on a wet track, he finished sixth in 2013 in his first-ever race at the Formula 1 circuit.

The weekend will feature typical hot and steamy Texas weather conditions, though Gimple wouldn’t be too disappointed if a stray shower or two came into play.

“We’re starting to get a handle on the set up of the car and we’ll have a couple of things to try at COTA, but I’d honestly rather it rain!” laughed Gimple. “But I’m expecting it to be dry so we’ll work hard on trying to get the dry set up down and get the outright speed. In the Civic last year, we were pretty good for the first half hour before the tires starting falling off, so if we can get within two seconds a lap in the dry, we’ll consider that a win. I’m not sure COTA is the best track for our car because it’s an MX-5 track, but we’ll see how we do. We’ll see if we can get the car better through the transitions, left and right with the esses there, and the last sector of the track with all the tight, long turns.”

Gimple and his Compass360 Racing co-driver Paul Holton have continued to show improvement with the new Audi machine as the team makes progress on the set up of the car. The squad is fresh off of its best-ever finish of the year with the Audi at Virginia International Raceway three weeks ago in which Gimple came home 13th.

Practice for the Circuit of the Americas event begins on Wednesday with a second practice and qualifying set for Thursday. The 2.5-hour race is set to go green at 12:40 PM Central Time on Friday with LIVE streaming on IMSA.com. Follow all the IMSA action through the weekend with the IMSA app.

You can also follow @KyleGimple on twitter for live race updates.

The race will be televised on FOX Sports 1 on Sunday, September 27 at 1:30 PM ET.