BRASELTON, GA (26 Sept. 2022) – Rebel Rock Racing is looking for a strong finish to the 2022 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season by making a charge for the podium in Friday’s Fox Factory 120 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Frank DePew and Robin Liddell will return to the No. 71 Urban Grid Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R for Friday’s two-hour race, which will be streamed live on Peacock.
“We’re looking to close out the season on a bit of a high,” Liddell said. “I think our Camaro will perform quite well there. I’m not one to make rash predictions, but I think we can do reasonably well there.”
“I love the track, and we’ve generally been fairly strong there, and have had good results at Road Atlanta,” DePew said. “It’s an interesting track, with a lot of overtaking opportunities – and places where you can be overtaken. Hopefully, we’ll perform well this weekend.”
The team enters the finale seventh in the Grand Sport standings in a season highlighted by a victory at Lime Rock Park, preceded by back-to-back fourth-place finishes at Watkins Glen International and Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
“Road Atlanta is a driver’s circuit,” Liddell said. “It’s tricky in some spots, and it can be difficult to have an incident-free race there. But if we can have an incident-free race, the car’s speed is strong and I think we can get a good result.”
Rebel Rock has been a podium contender the past three years at Road Atlanta, winning a four-hour race in 2020 but hurt by bad racing luck in the other events. Last year, contact with a TCR car sent the Camaro spinning into a gravel trap. The team lost two laps due to the incident, but ran strong the remainder of the event to finish 15th.
“I’m looking forward to Road Atlanta,” said DePew. “For me, a critical part of running good laps at Road Atlanta is getting a good run out of the right-hand corner coming out of the back straight. That’s a super-important corner for us, because we don’t have a lot of grunt, so we’re going to have to pick up the power a lot earlier than the other cars.”
Rebel Rock Racing took third during the 2020 Petit Le Mans weekend, missing out on the victory by less than a second. In 2019, a pit lane penalty cost the team a potential podium finish. Undeterred, Liddell charged back to run eighth – only to run out of fuel on the final lap.
“We’ve won the four hours there with this car, and I think the car will be quite strong there this weekend,” Liddell said. “We had a good run at VIR in our last race, despite obvious issues, but the team did a great job getting the car rebuilt and getting it back out was a great effort.”
Liddell won at Road Atlanta in 2012 to finish second in the Grand-Am Rolex Series GT championship in a Camaro GT.R. He finished second there in 2015 driving a Camaro Z/28.R to wrap up the title in what is now the Michelin Pilot Challenge.
Friday’s Fox Factory 120 will take the green flag at 1:10 p.m. ET.
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