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The next action for the Grand-Am Rolex Series will be April 26, with the Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway. |
mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk Brumos Racing Takes Closest Rolex 24 At Daytona in History to Kick Off 2009 Grand-A Rolex Series Season Donohue celebrates 40th anniversary of father's triumph by edging Ganassi team in Rolex 24 David Donohue passed Juan Pablo Montoya with 39 minutes remaining and held on to win the 47th Rolex 24 At Daytona - on the 40th anniversary of his father, Mark Donohue's, victory in the 1969 event. Donohue joined Darren Law, Buddy Rice and Antonio Garcia to give Brumos Racing its first Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 victory since 2003, denying TELMEX/Target Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates its fourth consecutive triumph in America's premier sports car event by .167 seconds, the closest finish in event history. "These guys have put a lot of effort into this," Donohue said. "I'm glad to be able to carry the flag. The Brumos team is just a tenacious bunch of guys, they never give up and today proves the point. We came here ready to run and we ran hard the whole time." Montoya pressured Donohue throughout the final 39 minutes, but the No. 01 Lexus Riley could not overcome the power of the Brumos Porsche on the Daytona banking. "Every corner it was 110 percent everywhere," said Montoya, who drove for Ganassi in the team's 2007 and 2008 victories. "And it was fun, because we drove like that the last two hours. And we didn't make any mistakes. I gave it 110 percent, and I know I couldn't go any faster if I had done anything different." Joao Barbosa finished third in the No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche Riley shared by JC France, Hurley Haywood and Terry Borcheller - 5.504 seconds back -- while Max Angelelli took fourth in the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Ford Dallara co-driven by Wayne Taylor, Pedro Lamy and Brian Frisselle, 10.589 seconds behind. Scott Dixon, the 2006 event winner, took fifth in the No. 02 Target/TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley shared by Dario Franchitti and Alex Lloyd. The record-breaking event had the closest margin of victory, most finishers on the lead lap and most cautions, 25 for 117 laps. The top four finishers covered 735 laps - most in the Daytona Prototype era. The previous record for the closest Rolex 24 finish was 2000, 30.879 seconds. The 53 lead changes among 22 drivers and nine cars were the second-highest total in event history. The final hour was run under green flag conditions, with the top four running nose to tail part of the way. The GT race came down to a one-two finish for TRG Porsche, with Andy Lally and Justin Marks joined by Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long and RJ Valentine in the winning No. 67 Porsche GT3. Second, one lap behind, was the TRG No. 66 of Spencer Pumpelly, Tim George Jr., Richard Leitz and Emmanuel Collard. The opening two hours and 45 minutes of the race were run under green flag conditions, with Penske Racing joining the Brumos and Penske teams in setting a torrid pace. Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Ryan Briscoe combined to lead 191 laps in the debut of the Penske Racing Crown Royal Cask No. 16 Porsche Riley before the team lost 15 laps in the early morning hours to replace the rear-end assembly, dropping out of contention. The team went on to finish sixth, 18 laps down. The GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley of Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty - joined by three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and Jimmy Vasser - rebounded from early mechanical problems to take seventh. Another team coming back after a slow start was the No. 2 Childress-Howard Motorsports Gentlemen Jack Pontiac Crawford of three-time Rolex 24 winner Andy Wallace, Rob Finlay, Casey Mears and Danica Patrick, which finished eighth. The No. 09 Spirit of Daytona Racing/Boy Scouts of America Porsche Coyote of motorcycle standouts Scott Russell, Jeff Ward and Jason Pridmore - joined by Guy Cosmo - rebounded from two spins and a pit fire to take 11th in the Daytona Prototype class. Heavy attrition struck the Ford-powered teams, with a mechanical problem - traced to a wheel on the crankshaft - sidelining six of the seven teams. This included the No. 6 Michael Shank Racing Riley, which suddenly slowed with AJ Allmendinger at the wheel near the five-hour mark. Only 10 minutes later, Darren Turner coasted to a stop while running third in the No. 76 Krohn Racing Ford Riley. Similar problems would sideline the contending No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Westfield Insurance Riley, the No. 61 AIM Autosport Riley and the No. 77 Doran Racing McDonald's Dallara, which led four laps with Brad Jaeger at the wheel. Also failing to finish was the new No. 45 Victory Junction - Orbit Racing BMW Riley of Kyle Petty, Bill Lester, Darren Manning and Leo Hendry, which exited after 216 laps with engine problems. Brumos Porsche fielded winning entries in the Rolex 24 in 1973, 1975 (as Peter Gregg Racing), 1976 and 1978, and also sponsored the winning Joest Porsche in 1991. The team also won its class in 1962, 1968 and 1972. Porsche's last overall victory in the Rolex 24 was in 2003, when TRG put a GT entry in victory lane. The Donohues became the third father-son combination to win overall in the history of the event, three days after the pair joined Dan and Alex Gurney as the race's lone father-son pole winners. Mark Donohue won the 1969 race in a Lola-Chevrolet T70, joined by Chuck Parsons. Al Unser and Al Unser Jr., and John Paul and John Paul Jr. also were overall winners of the Rolex 24. TRG Takes 1-2 Finish in Rolex Series GT Class With arguably one of its best driver lineups ever, TRG earned the top two positions in the Rolex 24 in the Rolex Series GT class, with Andy Lally anchoring a team which included Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long, Justin Marks and RJ Valentine to the GT victory and a ninth-place finish overall in the No. 67 TRG Construct Corps/CRG Porsche GT3. It marked the second straight season two GT cars finished in the top 10 in the overall standings. Lally earned his second class victory in the Rolex 24, finishing a dominating weekend for TRG, which led 301 of the 695 laps. In fact, TRG drivers never looked back after Andy Lally inherited the lead from Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3 driver Kevin Roush, who pulled off the course on Lap 553 with a broken driveshaft. Porsche clearly made a statement from the beginning, as Lally traded the lead with defending race winner and 2009 polesitter Sylvain Tremblay in the No. 70 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 early in the 2009 race. But when Tremblay pulled the Mazda off the track with a ruptured fuel cell in the race's first hour, the Porsches dominated. Of the 695 laps, Porsche led all but 72 of them, and at the 24 one-hour intervals, only three times did a Porsche not lead. It was a battle between TRG and Farnbacher Loles Racing thereafter. Dominik Farnbacher, Matthew Marsh and Kevin Roush put the No. 86 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3 up front a race-high 268 laps, and during the late-night and mid-morning hours, the No. 86 and Nos. 66 and 67 TRG Porsche GT3s swapped the lead multiple times. But when Roush pulled off the track - in nearly the same fashion as Farnbacher Loles Racing's No. 87 Porsche GT3 hours earlier - during the final four hours, it gave TRG all it needed to earn the team's first Rolex 24 victory since 2003, when Bergmeister and team owner Kevin Buckler won overall and in the GT class with Michael Schrom and Timo Bernhard. The victory was the third in Rolex 24 competition for Bergmeister, and the first for Long, Marks and Valentine, a 62-year-old Massachusetts native who became the oldest Rolex 24 class winner since Joe Policastro won at 62 years, 10 months and 13 days. Spencer Pumpelly - who shared the No. 66 TRG AXA/Mitchell Rubber Porsche GT3 with Ted Ballou, Tim George Jr., Emmanuel Collard and Richard Lietz - gave his team a second-place finish, one lap behind the No. 67. The car actually led 152 laps - three more than the No. 66 - and as late as the final three hours. Not only did TRG sweep the top two positions, but Porsche swept the podium. B.J. Zacharias, Phillip Martien and Porsche factory drivers Sascha Maassen and Patrick Pilet took the No. 33 Wright Motorsports Phillips Way Racing Porsche GT3 to third. The quartet never led, but ran among the top five for more than half the race. Others led but trailed off at the finish. Defending Rolex Series GT champions Paul Edwards and Kelly Collins, who shared the No. 07 Banner Racing Pontiac GXP.R with Jan Magnussen, paced 66 circuits in the only to finish fourth. Roush, Farnbacher, Marsh and Eric Lux didn't go away completely empty-handed, however. The crew made the changes and took the checkered flag fifth, seven laps behind the GT winners. Two other Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3s also finished in the top 10. For their efforts, the No. 70 SpeedSource team finished 17th in class, breaking a three-race Rolex Series winning streak at the 3.56-mile track.
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