photo by John Thwley

After his successful American Le Mans Series debut at Mid-Ohio, Ryan Lewis travels to Wisconsin this weekend for the next round at Road America. The British driver recently spoke about the Mid-Ohio race and his thoughts going into Road America.

"After Mid-Ohio it was a great feeling just to be back out racing again," said Ryan. "Myself and John (Faulkner) shared all the luck in the Intersport camp over the weekend, with our sister car suffering mechanical woes all weekend. That was the disappointing part of the weekend as I was looking forward to a good battle during the race. I'm sure the teething problems that come with a new cars' first weekend, and the challenges of running two cars, will be ironed out by Road America.

"I was pretty happy with our race pace at Mid-Ohio. I didn't think we would be quite as close to the pace of the majority of the field, and to be quicker than one of the Dyson cars and as quick as the BK Mazda shows we have the potential to keep improving. I believe that Road America will play to the strengths of our package, more so than the majority of the venues in the first half of the season. The boys at AER give both of the Intersport cars some serious horsepower that's going to really help on those long straights at Elkhart as well as Mosport and Road Atlanta. Even though we are hurting a little in the corners compared to the manufacturer boys, just the nature of the tracks will swing things back a little in our favour. That doesn't mean we're going to rely on engine displacement to do the talking for us. From rolling off the truck on Wednesday, to finishing the race on Saturday, we learned a huge amount.

"We have a good baseline to start from when we get to Wisconsin, Dunlop have some new rubber for us to try and Road America is definitely one of my favourite places to race in North America. When I first came to Road America in ‘06 with Atlantics, the place distinctly reminded me of Spa-Francorchamps back in Europe, my favourite track of all. It has the same historic allure that makes you feel almost privileged every time you leave pit lane. Now that I'm sharing that track with some of the best drivers in the world, and competing with likes of Audi, Porsche and Acura, it just makes it that little bit more special.

"I'm sure the place is going to be very different in a 600hp plus sports car than the Atlantic car I previously drove there - the back straight and the climb up the hill will certainly go a lot quicker - but what I have learned in those past two years is just going to help take the fight to the rest of the guys and show that the underdogs do have teeth."

The Road America race takes place at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, on Saturday 9 August. The four-hour race begins at 1600hrs local time and will be shown in the UK on Motors TV.