FINALLY, ON TOP
In 2007, Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney combined to win 10 poles in their No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet-Riley. For the 2010 season, the “Red Dragon” (personally, yours truly best likes “El Diablo,” but will concede the point for now) has been all the way up front but once – that one occurring Sunday when it paces the field for the 1 p.m. EDT start of the New Jersey Motorsports Park 250 presented by Crown Royal (live on SPEED).
“It’s been too long,” Fogarty conceded following his 1:15.148 lap and an average 107.787-mph speed over the 2.25-mile Thunderbolt race course.
Plainly, though, the car’s been hooked up since shortly after official practice started Friday morning as is rode rails around the Thunderbolt’s turns while many other Daytona Prototypes struggled.
“I’d like to know where they got the extra horsepower,” one competitor cracked after the qualifications. “It’s clear they’ve got some extra horses.”
Racers never, ever quit claiming a faster “other guy” has an unequaled “special advantage.”
Never.
UH, HOW ABOUT “EL DIABLO VERDE?”
Seeing as Art Arfons coined “Green Monster,” the Mean Green Krohn Racing Machine can’t exactly claim that moniker – but one realizes it must be pretty darn close when team owner Tracy Krohn qualified the car fifth overall. (No offense or disrespect intended, Mr. Krohn, and though you’re far better at this checkered-flag-chasing stuff than yours truly, it’s pretty darn clear your considerable professional expertise lies elsewhere).
Nevertheless, in his No. 75 Proto Auto Ford Lola, Krohn uncorked a 1:15.861 (106.774 mph) lap – less than one-second off the DP pole – in Saturday’s qualifying ahead of Sunday’s 1 p.m. EDT New Jersey Motorsports Park 250 presented by Crown Royal.
Running up front at NJMP really isn’t all that unusual for Krohn Racing, though, inasmuch as Krohn’s current co-driver, Nic Jönsson, won the 2009 race with Ricardo Zonta all but going away, producing one of that season’s largest winning margins. Indeed, one of the Daytona Prototype’s largest winning margins ever – done in the rain, to boot.
“Tracy and I have one our best shots at winning this season, here,” Jönsson said the day before qualifications. “Tracy is as focused here as I’ve seen him in awhile. When he’s not distracted he can hit his marks as well as any other sportsman driver out here.”
Krohn needs to.
In a battle for the Rolex Series’ annual Jim Trueman Award – earned by the best, season-long overall “gentleman” driver performance – Krohn is only 87 points behind current award leader John Pew (Michael Shank Racing No. 60 Crown Royal XR Ford-Riley, co-driven by Ozz Negri), who qualified 10th for Sunday’s race.
SPEAKING OF “GENTLEMEN”
Scott Russell, co-driver of Banner Racing’s No. 07 Corvette and teammate to Paul Edwards, was broadly grinning Saturday after Edwards put the Leighton Reese-owned car on the Grand Touring race pole for Sunday’s New Jersey Motorsports Park 250 presented by Crown Royal.
Russell, a 2008 Motorcycle Hall of Fame inductee now two-seasons deep into sportscar racing, easily was among the world’s best bike riders when that career came to a very bloody end on Daytona International Speedway’s pit road in 2001. Indeed, Russell stared death squarely in the face that day, enduring injuries that took years to heal and which entirely took a talented rider off a bike seat – upon which he previously became one of only two riders to have scored five Daytona 200 wins (a race run since 1937).
“You have no idea how much purpose this has given me,” Russell said after Edwards’ run. “I was at a point where I didn’t know what I’d do with the rest of my life. I was pretty low a couple of years ago.”
Russell, who admittedly struggled after first undertaking sportscar racing in the 2009 Rolex 24 At Daytona, has over his fewer-than-two seasons gained more confidence and learned to regain his feel for racing – though from a completely different point of view.
“Riding a bike and driving a car are completely different animals,” Russell said.”There’s just no comparison; the feel you have or where you hit the marks for braking, turns or whatever, is totally different.”
Russell this year twice qualified the Corvette a sportscar-career best third (at VIR’s Bosch Engineering 250 and for the Sahlen’s 6 Hours of The Glen) and claimed his first sportscar podium, a third at VIR.
“There were times when I even questioned myself on this (sportscar racing) but I stuck with it and, now, I’ve found new life. I’m having some serious fun now.”
SO MUCH FOR A NEAR-TERM BROADCASTING CAREER
Scott Pruett, driver of the No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley and evidently intending to be Jamie Lee Curtis’ gender opposite for the graying crowd, says he intends to return to the driver’s seat in 2011.
“I have no intention of slowing down; retiring,” the half-century old Pruett (well, it’s true) said Saturday following his teammate’s fourth-place qualification run for Sunday’s New Jersey Motorsports Park 250 presented by Crown Royal.
HEAVY, MAN
Memo Rojas, co-driver with Scott Pruett of Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix (y José) Sabates’ No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley, said the additional 75-lb. weight mandated by a recent Rolex Series’ rules adjustment has produced a bit of a challenge to the driver.
“It’s like carrying more fuel, only the car never uses it up,” Rojas said. “It takes longer to slow and longer to return to speed. At Daytona we were able to maintain speed because of the track’s layout. But here (at New Jersey Motorsports Park) the turns are different.”
One of the team’s members mentioned exceptionally rare, heavy brake wear in an examination after the July 3 Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway. “The wear was more than we’d ever seen before,” he said.
A SEASON’S FIRST
Jordan Taylor, driver of the No. 30 3-dimensional/IDEMITSU Mazda RX-8 failed to qualify on the Grand Touring front row for Sunday’s New Jersey Motorsports Park 250 presented by Crown Royal – the first he’s missed in 2010.
Of course, such perhaps is due to his not even trying, inasmuch as new Racers Edge co-driver Dave Lacey got the nod for the qualification effort. Though Lacey was 16th of 19 GT cars in qualifying, Taylor’s not terribly worried.
“Many of the other teams put their top driver in for qualifying,” Taylor said, being careful to not inadvertently mischaracterize Lacey’s driving ability.
“Dave’s not been in a car since the Rolex 24 so I didn’t expect a fast qualification from him. The difference for us that we anticipate having to split driving time between just us, whereas a lot of the other teams will be sandwiching one driver between the other’s two driving stints. We’ll have one driver change; they’ll effectively have three drivers having two changes. A strategy like that is more difficult to realize successfully.”
TOP-FIVE QUALIFICATION PENALTY
Rolex Sports Car Series teams routinely are held for an hour’s time or more following race-qualification runs, their team cars impounded and out of reach while awaiting an “okay” to return the cars to their respective garages.
“Top-five teams are penalized,” said one frustrated top-qualifier crew member as he and others tried to bide time in whatever available shade as series officials reviewed data derived from each car’s ECU (Electronic Control Unit).
Series officials, seeking to assure a team’s qualification run didn’t involve anything outside of the rules, download and review ECU data from each of the fastest five Daytona Prototype and Grand Touring qualifiers. Meanwhile, one or more team representatives must remain on hand to immediately move the cars from an impound area within which team members are not permitted to stand or roam, much less touch their cars until given an “okay” by series’ officials.
“It amounts to a penalty if you’re fast,” a team manager said. “The other teams (those which did not qualify in the top-five) get anywhere from 60-minutes to 90-minutes head start (transitioning to) their race set-ups while we stand here twiddling thumbs.”
“If they (series officials) find something wrong they know where to find us and can address it that time,” said still another team’s top crew member on hand. “If they’re really afraid we’ll try to pull something, they can send an official with us to make sure we don’t touch the engine or electronics. But like the other teams we’ll at least have the opportunity to perform other prep work in the meantime. Besides, our guys would like to get out of here early, too, and get some rest. They deserve it.”
INTO THE SUNSET
The Ford Racing Mustang Challenge, self-characterized as “The Place To Race,” won’t be much longer, despite having produced some excellent competition for those whose pocket books couldn’t accommodate a full-on professional sportscar-racing budget.
The series will be hosting its final race at Tooele, Utah’s Miller Motorsports Park on September 12.
According to additional sources, rent-a-Mustang FR500S race cars are going fast.
Birthed by former Ford Racing director Dan Davis and the late Utah-based entrepreneur Larry Miller, the Mustang Challenge offered a fairly straightforward means of competition – take almost street-legal Pony Cars, add some willing drivers and turn ‘em loose for a gallop.
About 20 entries are currently expected for the Utah final.
Later,
DC
Nic Johnson qualified the 75
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