Dave Kallmann

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

ELKHART LAKE – The road to sports-car history runs through the rolling hills of rural Wisconsin for Chip Ganassi Racing.

The Indianapolis-based team made its final preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year at Road America in Elkhart Lake and then delivered Ford a memorable win in the world’s most famous endurance race.

Monday and Tuesday the team was back, putting one of its Ford GTs through its paces for the final time before shipping a pair of them to France to race next month.

“Of all the tracks in the country … this is definitely the best track to simulate high speeds and somewhat similar corners,” said Joey Hand, one of three co-drivers in the Le Mans winning car last year.

RACING CHAT: Dave Kallmann at 1 p.m. Wednesday

Road America’s 4-mile layout features two long straightaways and a variety of turns. The Carousel is a long sweeper that bears some resemblance to Le Mans’ Porsche Curves, and the Kink is a challenging right-hand bend that becomes even more daunting with the low-downforce setup teams are allowed to run at Le Mans.

The Road America test last year was the first time Hand and his partners had driven their cars with that package.

The cars are made to cut through the air most efficiently to maximize speed on the long Le Mans straights, but there’s a trade-off. To get the tires to grip through the corners, teams must rely more on mechanical parts such as dampers, springs and anti-roll bars.

“We really felt good as drivers (after that test),” Hand said.

“I remember specifically sitting here thinking, if that car is as good at Le Mans, we’ll be good. And we really were.”

The Ford GT program was built specifically with Le Mans in mind to coincide with the manufacturer’s first victory there, a 1-2-3 finish in 1966.

Fielding two cars that compete full-time in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the United States and Canada and two based in Europe that race regularly in the World Endurance Championship, Ganassi and Ford finished first, third, fourth and ninth in their class.

Hand, an American, his usual partner, German Dirk Muller, and French IndyCar driver Sebastien Bourdais led the way.

“It still gives me goose bumps thinking about it,” Muller said minutes before squeezing into the cockpit Monday.

With Hand and Muller, the team experimented with two types of Michelin tires it will have for Le Mans that it can’t ordinarily run. Then Australian Ryan Briscoe and Brit Richard Westbrook joined Tuesday to take turns making longer runs.

“It’s more about tire wear, it’s more about just letting the drivers feel the tire,” said team manager Mike O’Gara, who hoped to log 400 to 600 miles over the day-and-a-half test.

“It’s how many laps can we do on a set of tires and where the balance of the car goes during that run.

“If it’s a well-balanced car at the beginning of the run, by the end one of the two ends of the car is going to lose grip more. So is the car going to be loose? Is it going to have understeer?”

The test also afforded engineers the opportunity to gather data that would be fed into the Ford simulator, which the drivers will use in the coming weeks to complete virtual laps on the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe.

“It’s a big mental confidence thing for them,” O’Gara said.

Hand and Muller both downplayed the pressure of trying to repeat at Le Mans.

They won once. Ford won again. And Ganassi – who has won the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500 and the 24 Hours of Daytona – collected the most coveted trophy he hadn’t already owned.

But the drivers also noted this will be another milestone race. Ford also won 50 years ago, in ’67.

“You need to have that little bit of luck but you need to work for your luck,” Muller said.

“That’s why we are here. We are not sleeping. We’re on it. We want to win.”