As the reigning GT winner in the American Le Mans Series, you’d think the guys at Corvette Racing would arrive at Lime Rock full of confidence and smiles.

Unfortunately – their race at Le Mans “spoilt the party” for the Detroit GM squad. While the C6.R has been wildly successful in the US, balance of performance adjustments handed out to their competitors in France put them at a massive straight line speed disadvantage.

While Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor salvaged the day with fourth place, it was mainly due to clever pit strategy in the closing hours of the race.

Magnussen and Garcia return this weekend after their Laguna Seca win while reigning GT champions Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner are back in the No.4 Corvette.

After running 8.5 miles at Le Mans, the switch to the 1.5 mile Lime Rock Park is not expected to highlight the straight line speed issues. Traffic however – that will be another matter.

“At Le Mans, you have 55 cars on a long track. At Lime Rock, you feel like you have 200 cars because there is no place for you to run off and hide,” Gavin said.

“You can’t get a nice little piece of tarmac to run around by yourself for two hours and 45 minutes. It’s one of those places where you can never let your guard down even for a millisecond. You’re either on top of someone else or someone is coming to overtake you.

“You have to have eyes in the back of your head to deal with the traffic situation.”