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"It&amp;#039;s been more than 40 years since Ford raced with factory backing at Le Mans. While the Ford GT evokes memories of that exciting era, current management seems to be content with letting others carry the torch in international sports car racing here and abroad. No American racing team has spent more time and money racing the Ford GT than the husband-and-wife team of pro/am racers, Dave and Andrea Robertson of Ray, Michigan, north of Detroit.   They have invested three years in the ALMS GT race car they bought from Kevin Doran in early 2008, and have now built and rebuilt two Doran GT-Rs several times over, with not a single podium appearance to show for it, and only minimal help from Ford Racing.   The GT is old news by now, a supercharged supercar created by and for the egos of a group of long-departed executives, but the Robertsons persist, because, as Dave Robertson says, it&amp;#039;s fun, it&amp;#039;s fast, it makes a beautiful race car, and it&amp;#039;s genetically connected to the Ford GT40 that a young Dave Robertson watched on ABC-TV&amp;#039;s Wide World of Sports when it won Le Mans.   Both Dave and Andrea are pilots, and he&amp;#039;s a retired chief pilot of Spirit Airlines. Robertson&amp;#039;s father is the aviation safety pioneer who introduced fuel cells for aircraft and helicopters, and their company still makes aviation fuel cells for military and civilian aircraft. The Robertsons fly to the races in a Cessna Citation S550 business jet. Besides being a very experienced racer (Formula Ford, Spec Ford, Panoz series and ALMS), Andrea is the only female, and only grandmother, racing in ALMS GT.   The Robertsons have changed everything on their Ford GTs but the roof, tub, frame extensions, door hinges and windshield wipers, most things more than once, in search of better handling, cornering power, braking and reliability.   Working out of Dick Barbour Racing in Braselton, Georgia, a tiny crew of 10 with a tiny budget (compared to those of the BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari and Porsche factory teams) does all the work, including driving the transporters and going over the wall on pitstops. They raced for three seasons on Dunlop tires, but have switched to Michelins for the 2011 season (one of the things Ford helped with, along with some wind tunnel time, some 4-post shaker time and an old GT chassis).   The 2011 season will include the team&amp;#039;s first trip to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, about which the team is very, very excited. Being Le Mans rookies, they have to go twice, once for inspection and once for the race itself.   Because both Robertsons have raced various Panoz race cars with some success, they get their engines from Elan Motorsports, the engine-building division of Panoz that&amp;#039;s right up the road. Built up from Ford Racing &amp;quot;Cammer&amp;quot; aluminum blocks, they&amp;#039;re naturally aspirated, breathing through a pair of 28.6-mm restrictors. Burning E85 fuel, they make about 500 bhp at 6800 rpm from 5.0 liters. Everything else on the cars comes from small suppliers in the Atlanta area, from machining to carbon fiber to paint and graphics.   The Robertsons employ a staff of multi-talented engineers, mechanics and fabricators led by team manager Andrew &amp;quot;H&amp;quot; Smith, chief engineer Lee Penn and crew chief Stephane Chistel, who among them have 80 years of racing experience in Formula 1, sports cars, touring cars, rallying and motorcycles. And then there&amp;#039;s patron saint Dick Barbour, who&amp;#039;s been going to Le Mans since 1978 and knows a thing or two about racing.   The Robertson drivers, in addition to Dave and Andrea, are 54-year-old David Murry, who&amp;#039;s done it all (Formula Ford, Sports Renault, Firehawk, World Challenge, Porsche Cup, Rolex Grand Am DP and GT, Le Mans, factory stints with BMW, Lotus, Nissan and Porsche) and Anthony Lazzaro, a veteran of karts, motorcycles and 10 seasons of Rolex Grand Am GT racing. At the 12 Hours of Sebring, the 24 hours of Le Mans and at Petit Le Mans, the team adds veteran Boris Said and young hotshoe Colin Braun, who at 17 was the youngest driver ever to stand on the podium at Le Mans.   At the Sebring ALMS season opener, the all-American Robertson team had better results than ever before, finishing 8th (Robertson, Robertson and Said) and 12th (Murry, Lazzaro and Braun) in the hard-fought GT class. Both cars were running at the finish, undamaged, undaunted, and well ahead of some of the factory Ferrari, Jaguar and Porsche entries. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a17027/racing-the-ford-gt/>