NJMP ODDS and ENDS

 

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 10^th 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 16^th 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

DOES “GARDEN” MEAN “PARADISE STATE?”

 

Not in some estimations.

The unofficial skinny has it that Grand-Am is unlikely to return to New Jersey Motorsports Park in 2011 – though such isn’t at all attributable to the lack of plentiful and appreciative crowds in attendance of the Rolex Series’ NJMP races since they began in 2008.

One supposes the “surprise” factor shouldn’t be terribly high on the issue, considering the relationship didn’t exactly begin in harmonious fashion from the start after championship driver Scott Pruett impacted what many in racing characterized as a poorly located initial point in a barrier designed to provide safety to race personnel stationed along pit road.

Pruett was knocked unconscious when his No. 01 TELMEX Lexus (now BMW) Riley impacted that barrier – hastily relocated the night following the August 2008 incident – and was sent to the South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center after the incident which occurred during the series’ first morning session at the 2.25-mile facility in August 2008 (more below).

Also criticized heavily in 2008 was a crest in a formerly flat-out fast section between the track’s second and third turns, “fixed” with a chicane addition by the series’ second appearance in 2009 but that before which brought some race cars perilously close to blowing over.

Adding salt to the wound, so to speak, was the track’s dry, bare terrain that year. Blamed on a lack of rain and insufficient time for growing turf, off track excursions produced billowing, vision-obscuring dust clouds. Though the track dispatched water trucks to temper the effect, Antonio Garcia, then driving for Eddie Cheever, kicked up an enormous cloud after being forced from the racing surface between Turns 1 and 2 following the 2008 race start.

Having received a green flag following that of the one thrown for the Daytona Prototypes, a gaggle of Grand Touring cars and their testosterone-pulsing drivers raced headlong into the resultant Turn 2-obscuring dust cloud and thus sent a few teams packing for homeward trips before the first lap’s completion.

It’s a never-ending cloud, according to some.

“It’s our third race here and every time a car comes down pit road the (accumulated) sand still flies all over the place, getting into everything from our gear to our eyes,” one longtime pit team member groused Thursday. “You’d think they’d have had enough time to grow some grass by now or, at the least, run a broom down pit road.”

Today, tufts of grass are seen throughout the massive facility’s wide expanses devoted to transporter, team, official, race personnel, paid VIP and fan parking, but few have joined to form anything close to a lush green carpet one would believe possible in The Garden State, as New Jersey’s self-proclaimed moniker would prefer to convey.

Further still, one team owner, who likewise was on hand for NJMP’s inaugural 2008 Rolex Series race, said that while he could understand the track at that time stood to be cut some slack, the paddock’s condition remains “substandard” still, noting that some team transporters on setup day either were directed through or were ultimately parked in inches-deep mud – a confirmation of such abounding on massive transporter tires sighted throughout the NJMP paddock Friday.

A walk around the track’s viewing areas Friday proved similar conditions abundantly existed elsewhere, with spectators often left to drive glistening six-figure cars - and themselves when walking - through or into mud-caked areas found outside the track’s non-racing asphalt surfaces.

Not immune to the wet though, but perhaps most disgustingly so was the main garage men’s bathroom and its two-and-three feet wide, um, liquid surface sheen running distinctly from front door to the bathroom’s farthest reaches. Weather, humidity and, perhaps, user sloppiness notwithstanding, a simple unsteady walk producing a skid, slip and subsequent pelvis-breaking fall could add up where a broom, mop and anti-skid flooring may have otherwise prevented – not to mention the joy in thence elsewhere conveying any nature of possible public health maladies on one’s shoes or clothing.

“Clearly there’s room for improvement,” award-winning motorsports writer Chris Economaki on Friday said of NJMP.

FEEL THE LOVE

With Philadelphia being only about 40 miles to the north of New Jersey Motorsports Park (and the above notwithstanding) one would think “brotherly love” would be in the air.

Well, if love wasn’t all around, then there was at least some acrimony on hand to keep the gossip, one upmanship and sarcasm in full play.

Things kind of got of to a good start at the Friday morning drivers’ meeting when a certain, microphone-toting series  official began to point out some of the teams and drivers having rejoined the series.

“They’ve been absent a few races, some since Daytona,” the unnamed cigar-smoking official said.

Just about the time attendees expected to hear something brotherly along the lines of, “So let’s welcome them back,” instead came, “Please watch out for them when you’re on the track, they’re probably a little rusty from having not driven in so long.”

Nice.

Then there was Friday’s Grand Opening (invitation at right; barely pictured are John Potter and Craig Stanton) of Magnus East’s NJMP racing facility – complete with wine, food and activities for the kid in all of us – principally dedicated to two basic premises: raising the team’s community recognition by specifically, perhaps rhetorically asking “Who The Hell Are These Guys?” and, while in the process of opening their magnificently appointed Magnus Racing East facility – along with its “Clay Street Winery!” – tweaking a certain longstanding Porsche team likewise having likewise recently dedicated an “East” facility which clearly lacked a “bouncy house.”

2008 REVISITED

With pedal to metal as he traveled along a sweeping, high-speed right turn that passes beneath an overpass which provides two-lane New Jersey Motorsports Park paddock ingress and egress to fans and competitors alike, Pruett suddenly found himself dealing with a couple of dueling Porsches, apparently oblivious to Pruett’s presence.

Brad Frisselle saw it unfold from Kevin Doran's No. 77 Kodak Ford-Dallara pit - the first box encountered coming through pit-in.

"A GT car put his left-side tires off coming out of Turn 12 (at the beginning of pit straight) and threw up a huge cloud of dust," Frisselle recounted. "That spooked another GT car to his right. Then that car did a lane toss and Pruett, probably rolling into full throttle as he came out of the turn for whatever reason, just snapped; his rear end coming out from under him and he just slammed that barrier. He had just gotten perpendicular to the track surface - his rear coming around 90-degrees - when he hit (the tire-bordered metal barrier)."

"It was the hardest hit I've ever seen," said Frisselle, an IMSA championship winner in his own right and who easily has double, if not triple the number of motorsport years as most of those in any given racing paddock – years during which Frisselle owned and fielded Al Unser Jr’s first professional championship-winning race car.

"I have never been so scared for someone in my life," Mike Shank said.

Pruett's No. 01 TELMEX Lexus-Riley looked like a piece of half-rotten and dried wood that’d been on the wrong end of a karate kick.

Shank's been around, as a driver and as an owner. He's won honors doing both and, as a result, has seen a lot of things happen in motorsports.

According to Shank, acting as a fulcrum the metal barrier made contact just behind the driver's compartment but forward of the engine compartment, splitting the car in two, perpendicular to the car’s front-to-rear centerline.

Note that the car didn't bend; it broke.

When the driver compartment stopped (above, left) it sat partially in Doran's pit box and only a few feet away from Stevenson Motorsports' No. 57 Pontiac GTO.R - under which a mechanic was working.

"I didn't think twice about it," Doran said, "I just started hauling ass for what was left of the driver's compartment. John Maddox (Roush Yates Ford Engines' point man and former Emergency Medical Technician, to boot) was right with me."

"Scott was kind of rolling his head back and forth, like he was trying to hold it up straight but couldn't, so I reached through and held Scott's helmet with my hands on either side of his helmet."

"John, he was an EMT, was reaching inside, helping to stabilize his head and trying to assess Scott."

"Then all of a sudden the top of Pruett's car just flew off; scared shit out of me.”

It was Shank and one of his crewmen, Ralph Lohr, who between driving one of the team's haulers fuels the No. 6 MSR Ford-Riley.

Just steps away like Doran and Maddox when the wreck unfolded, Shank and Lohr were at full-tilt boogie on the way to Pruett before most had figured out anything had actually happened, much less its severity.

"We didn't really even think about it, we just reacted," Shank said. "We ripped what was left of the top off so we could get at Scott from above,"

With a straight look into Pruett's eyes, "That's when I saw them flutter, roll up into his head, and, I'm telling you, it scared the shit out of me."

“I was scared he was dead,” Doran said at the time. “The car was in pieces and he (Pruett) opened his eyes and then they just rolled back into his head.”

Battered, bruised and hurting, Pruett and co-driver Memo Rojas fielded a backup gamely retrieved from the TELMEX team’s Indianapolis-based shop As was the case then, Pruett, Rojas and the TELMEX team led the Rolex Series driving championship coming into the NJMP race, but so substantially so that the team could’ve simply withdrawn and, essentially, just start the final race of the season two weeks later at Miller Motorsports Park to claim the 2008 title.

“That’s not me,” Pruett (in his hospital jammies at left) said later that Thursday when he returned to NJMP, team manager Tim Keene only moments before saying it was Pruett’s call whether the team should pull up stakes and head home following the accident. Racing from their northern California home to be at her husband’s side, spouse Judy Pruett was in the team’s pit box when Scott Pruett gingerly climbed from and handed the TELMEX car over to Rojas, who guided an otherwise retired race car to a 9^th-place finish.

Later,

DC

AND THE WINNER IS . . .

 

Seven-hours, 55-minutes and about one-hard-turn (from eastbound Interstate 10 to southbound I-95) away from Pensacola, Fla., and well away from its reported floating, beach-fowling oil goo is Daytona Beach, Fla. – the location of a recently contested Round 8 of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16.

Seventeen hours, 17-minutes and at least a few more rights-and-lefts to the northeast of Daytona International Speedway is New Jersey Motorsports Park, where the “NJMP 250 Presented by Crown Royal” is next on the 2010 Rolex Sports Car Series Presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 schedule and where Michael Shank Racing’s No. 60 Crown Royal XR will go for its third-consecutive podium.

With a prospective record-tying seventh victory now in Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas’ sights, a historical first would be next on the No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley’s agenda.

Perhaps aiding a stymie, though, is the allure of the Pirelli P Zero Bonus Award distributing $20,000, $25,000 or $5,000 to a first-time winning DP or GT team (exactly the manner of the monetary award’s calculation and distribution eludes yours truly, but he didn’t do very well in Logic 101, either. Still, “thanks” to Pirelli for bellying up, even if “how” ain’t exactly clear and “don’t you think it’s time we stop now, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down” . . . (oops, sorry, just an Ol’ DC flashback, but thanks just the same, Buffalo Springfield).

WOULD YOU TAKE DRIVING LESSONS FROM THIS GUY?

Over on the Rolex Series’ Grand Touring side there’s a tenacious Andy Lally, who with co-driver R.J. Valentine won the July 3 Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway in The Racers Group No. 66 Advanced Aerosol Acquisition Porsche GT3 – something TRG’s previously accomplished a few times at Daytona.

On the other hand, SpeedSource’s Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal (No. 69 FXDD Mazda RX-8) must be thinking Lally is either a bad dream that won’t go away or something akin to a Jack Russell Terrier (the AKC Terrier Group’s non-explanation, by the way, as to why the Jack Russell is excluded or not excluded from the AKC also failing to penetrate this writer’s thick skull).

Thankfully for Lally, TRG Racing appears to be his home for the season’s remainder, considering it’s the fourth racing team for which he’s competed in 2010.

Through eight races, Lally (in order) has driven for TRG (3^rd, Rolex 24; 8^th, HMS); Matt Connolly Motorsports (15^th, Barber); TRG (1^st, VIR); Banner Racing (5^th, Lime Rock Park); TRG (1^st, The Glen); Team Sahlen (8^th, Mid-O); and TRG, again (1^st, Brumos 250).

Apparently on a mission (you think?) to win the championship, no matter beauty, Lally has scored four podiums (winning three) in his five 2010 races with TRG: Ted Ballou along for the ride at VIR; Bob Doyle and Spencer Pumpelly in The 6 Hours of The Glen; and, R.J. Valentine (far right, with Lally)at Daytona’s Brumos Porsche 250 – teaming again with Valentine and TRG for the July 16-18 Crown Royal 250 at New Jersey Motorsports Park. Should Lally and Valentine also win on Thunderbolt’s 2.25-mile track, Assentato and Segal, who in 2010 only once finished outside of the top 5, will need to finish fifth or better so as to retain first place in the points championship hunt.

In seven sportscar championship runs since the turn of the century, Lally has won three and placed second in four but, apparently, isn’t at all into “sharing” and wants still another championship as he gamely throws everything possible (hint: find Bill Auberlen and just ask “V-I-R?”) and available – Porsche (5 races), Corvette (2) and Mazda (1) into the pursuit.

You, too, can learn Lally’s best apex-finding move, if not his mental focus or spectacular VIR PIT maneuver, at the same place he’s racin’ this weekend – though at another time. Lally, occasional co-driving teammate Pumpelly and TRG Racing Queso Grande Kevin Buckler, the first driver to win the Rolex 24 At Daytona, 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Porsche Cup, have commenced teaching, demonstrating and exposing the art of racing to envious wannabes at TRG’s newly opened NJMP “Immersion” racing school.

OH, YES, THE DP WINNER . . .

(. . . un tramposo, oviamente, y . . .)

. . . despite being ordered to carry anew what roughly equated a half-tank of gas (weight-wise), Pruett and Rojas put Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (y José) Sabates’ No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley in the 2010 Brumos Porsche 250’s Victory Lane.

Despite an attempt to slow the TELMEX juggernaut with Technical Bulletin #2010-06 and more than a few observers muttering an “Uh-huh, see?” after Rojas qualified fifth (as compared to first in 2009 – with a different engine) for Brumos Porsche 250 pole, Rojas and Pruett proceeded to put petal to metal for 295.48 miles over Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56-mile road course, combining to lead 40 of the race’s 83 laps (and, elsewhere, provided yet more fodder for a copy editors’ mangling).

Additionally, Rojas recorded the TELMEX’ fast lap (1:42.817) on Lap 6. You know Rojas, right? Really, “right.”  He’s the guy who wears an almost identical driver’s fire suit to that of Pruett’s but who rarely, if ever, is provided post-race TV “comment” time. (Heck, he’d probably speak ‘Mexican,’ anyway, especially to all those prospective Hispanic audience members who presently constitute the United States’ largest minority group and who, historically, enjoy open-wheel and sportscar racing.)

Following the team’s first victory in 2004 at Le Circuit Mont Tremblant, the No. 01 Riley Daytona Prototype of Pruett and Rojas scored a number of “milestone” victories. Teamed first with Max Papis (at left) as co-driver and (mostly) a Lexus engine behind, Pruett and his co-drivers have since won better than 1-in-4 DP races, including the Daytona Prototype’s 50^th (Pruett, Luis Diaz at Watkins Glen short course, 2006), 75^th (Pruett, Rojas at Barber Motorsports Park, 2008) and with the Brumos Porsche 250, the 100^th race – competed where the DP era began in 2003 at Daytona International Speedway. Dare one omit TELMEX team manager Tim Keene, who’s been hanging around the Grand-Am paddock since the beginning of 2004?

Yet, should one think CGR’s winning percentage to be overbearing on this side of the fence, be thankful Team Ganassi has but one car presently in the Rolex Series.

In 2009, Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon and season-ending IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti evenly split 10 of 17 races won, following a 2008 season in which Dixon won the championship on the strength of a record-tying six race victories, among which was that year’s Indianapolis 500. Pruett and Rojas need win only two of the remaining four races to secure a record compilation of single-season wins, eight, besting Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney’s seven 2007-season wins, which propelled the two GAINSCO Auto Insurance drivers to that year’s Rolex Series DP driving championship (with a 2009 championship to follow).

AND THE SECOND-PLACE CAR WAS . . .

. . . yet another BMW-powered car.

Poor Steve Dinan, who for years toiled and paid some serious dues (a necessity to sing the blues) as he showed at each race, knowing one team after another would likely put forth great effort though imparting meager results, in the process going from often seeing faces once looking to console but, given Dinan’s success, now are inclined to damn.

Part of a one-two Dinan engine sweep at Daytona, finishing second in the Brumos Porsche 250 driving Starworks Motorsport's No. 8 Corsa Car Care/Xtreme Indoor Karting BMW-Riley were Ryan Dalziel and Mike Forest, the former returning to second place in the DP driving championship points standings following a one-race hiatus. Forest and Dalziel combined to lead 13 laps (3 and 10, respectively) but, as importantly, ran good enough to finish second on, give or take, about half of the first-place-car’s budget.

Dalziel, who posted his team’s fastest lap (1:43.129) on Lap 39, probably best summed what everyone else must do: “Now I’ve got to go out and win some races” so as to even possibly win the driving championship.

Team-owner Peter Baron will give his all to do just that, yet, will such effort be enough to overtake a team which in 2010 has only once finished out of the top two? The way this writer sees it, Pruett and Rojas need only to score a ninth-place or better in each of the remaining races to win their first title since 2008. (see points-possibility grid here)

Occupying third was the Brumos Porsche 250’s first non-BMW powered Riley, driven by Ozz “Rocky” Negri (left) and John “300” Pew in their Michael Shank Racing No. 60 Crown Royal XR Ford-Riley. Heading into next week’s New Jersey Motorsports Park race – where Negri with Mark Patterson scored a win in 2008 (Pew teamed with Ian James that year to finish 7^th at NJMP) and given the back-to-back podiums at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Daytona, one suspects the No. 60 Crown Royal car is on a roll. With an 87-point lead on Tracy Krohn, Pew has started pulling away, but hasn’t sewn up the race for the Jim Trueman award.

 

COULDA, SHOULDA, WOULDA . . .

Driving the No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche-Riley, David Donohue and Darren Law crossed the Brumos Porsche 250 finish line in fourth, 47-seconds behind the race’s victors. An early race pit stop’s unsure seating of a lug nut caused the No. 59 to immediately follow with a second pit stop so as to assure its safety – likely costing more time than that which at race end separated first and fourth places.

Ricky Taylor, (below) driver of the Brumos Porsche 250 pole-sitting No. 10 SunTrust Ford-Dallara and race leader of 13 laps. Dauntlessly handling his driving duties after earlier this year being thrown into the deep end, Taylor not only is learning at the University of Central Florida but at the School of Hard Knocks, too, his having been the object of a deft PIT maneuver played by someone other than Andy Lally. All of 20-years in age, Taylor’s knowledge acquisition (and disappointments) in the present will make for one seriously cagey future driver.

Nope, couldn’t avoid another mention of Jon Fogarty, now could we? The No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance (Childress) Chevrolet-Riley driver apparently befuddled even GAINSCO team owner Bob Stallings, who offered consternated apologies after Fogarty nudged Taylor from the track, which over the next couple of laps immediately drew a stop-and-go penalty that, in turn, led to a subsequent pit-road speeding violation and an additional stop-and-go. For good measure, Fogarty cracked first gear after serving the second penalty.

Bellying up to the Brumos Porsche 250’s “Bar of Woe” was at least two members of AIM Autosport’s No. 61 Pacific Mobile/BioSign Ford-Riley team. Team engineer Ian Willis, recently praised by an esteemed motorsports writer for having sat out the Rolex 24 at Daytona in favor of competing the season’s remainder, thinks sitting out the this year’s Rolex 24 wasn’t at all smart, given the tire, aerodynamic and mechanical-grip data not carried from Daytona’s frigid winter to its blistering summer. Driver Mark Wilkins (right) is the other, claiming fault for the team finishing 7-laps down in 24^th overall (11^th of 13 in class) and dropping from second to third in the DP driving championship. Still interesting was the car’s soaring front-end, un-guided missile launch.

Caught up in the Brumos Porsche 250’s apparent “PIT fever” was Adam Christodoulou who, according to Grand-Am officials, used the nose of his No. 68 MazdaSpeed Motorsports car to effectively end his (and co-driver John Edwards’) day, as well as that of the No. 07 AirJax.com/Mobil 1 Corvette, at the time driven by Scott Russell (shared with Paul Edwards), who evidently is starting to get the hang of this sporty car stuff because others are starting to take him out. (Nah, race car drivers wouldn’t do such a thing.)

Jordan Taylor, second son of Wayne (and Shelley) Taylor and younger brother to Ricky, has yet to be dislodged this season from the GT grid’s front. Still, Jordan Taylor and his Racers Edge Motorsports No. 30 3-dimensional.com/IDEMITSU Mazda RX-8 have only twice finished on following podiums (Barber Motorsports Park and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, respectively 2^nd and 3^rd). Averaging an 8.5-place finish, the driver is 9th in Grand Touring points.

HEADING TO NJMP

The first of the four remaining 2010 Rolex Series races, New Jersey Motorsports Park’s two past Rolex Series races has produced two winning teams: 2008, Ozz Negri and Mark Patterson (MSR No. 60 Ford-Riley); and, 2009, Nic Jönsson and Ricardo Zonta (Krohn Racing No. 76 Ford-Lola at right).

Finishing second each year was the No. 10 SunTrust Dallara – first as a Pontiac, then a Ford – with two Porsche flat-six Riley Daytona Prototypes following in third (Alex Job Racing, 2008; Penske Racing, 2009) and fourth (Brumos Racing No. 59, 2008; Brumos Racing No. 58, 2009).

With 45 lead laps, 2008 co-winner Ozz Negri is the NJMP lap leader. David Donohue that same year posted the second-highest lap count and retains that position going into this weekend’s race. 2009 co-winner Ricardo Zonta is third with 30 lead laps while his 2009 driving partner, Nic Jönsson, is fourth with 22 laps in the lead. The only other driver having recorded double-digit lead laps, Timo Bernhard, rounds out the top five with 14 (2009). Interestingly, none of 2008’s lap leaders made the 2009 list.

In 2008, AIM Autosport’s No. 61 Ford-Riley with Mark Wilkins at the wheel captured the DP pole with a 1:11.761, followed by Michael Valiante’s Pontiac-Dallara’s 1:12.023. Adding a chicane at a hill-cresting Turn 3 section for the 2009 race (though total track distance remained a constant 2.25 mi.), Penske Racing’s Romain Dumas, driving a Porsche-Riley, took the 2009 DP pole with a 1:14.057, while Scott Pruett and his Lexus-Riley was second fastest at 1:14.265,

GT front rows went to: 2008 – Bryan Sellers, 1:19.024 (Pole, TRG Porsche) and (at left) Andrew Davis (OP, 1:19.261, Stevenson Pontiac); 2009 – Kelly Collins, 1:21.369 (Pole, Banner Pontiac) and Andrew Davis, 1:21.443 (OP, Stevenson Pontiac).

Andy Lally and Tim George Jr. won the 2008 NJMP GT race in their TRG Porsche, while Dirk Werner and Leh Keen won the 2009 race in a Farnbacher Loles Porsche.

GT’s top-five NJMP lap leaders (name, lap totals) are: Andy Lally, 48; Ryan Phinny, 34, 2008; Dirk Werner, 22, 2009; Spencer Pumpelly, 17, 2009; Patrick Barrett (2008) and Leh Keen (2009), 16.

Including this year’s July 16-18 event, the NJMP races have yet to recur on the same calendar date; the first having occurred Aug 29-31, 2008, and the second on May 1-3, 2009.

The 2008 race was thought too dry, the 2009 race hardly so. For this weekend’s race The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts it’ll be hot with thunderstorms and sunny skies intermingling. The National Weather Service says race-day afternoon temperatures will be in the upper-80’s, maybe lower-90’s, with about a 25-percent chance of precipitation despite a 50-percent cloud cover.

Four Grand-Am races will be held (remember the “race within the race”) over the weekend, with two championship  points fights – Rolex Series DP and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge’s GS – in serious danger of soon becoming yawners while two – Rolex Series’ GT and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge’s ST – are tight and the outcomes of which could produce new points leaders.

On the way to the NJMP weekend, Wayne Taylor (SunTrust Racing) and David Klym (FABCAR) share a birthday Thursday, though originally occurring a few years apart.

Mark Patterson, who won the inaugural NJMP race with Ozz Negri in 2008, appears headed for slightly more DP seat time that of the originally forecast races at Daytona and The Glen, and it’s possible such may begin at NJMP . . . but with an altogether different team than that with which he’s been most commonly associated. You figure it out.

Later,

DC