After winning their first race on May 18, 2003, at Barber Motor Sports Park in Birmingham, Ala., Terry Borcheller and Forest Barber brought their No. 54 Bell Motorsports Chevrolet-Doran's to the 2003 Bully Hill Vineyards 250 to score their fourth victory in six races.
Overcoming what at one point was a one-lap deficit to finish 8-seconds behind in second place were Daytona Prototype driving championship points leaders David Donohue and Mike Borkowski in their No. 58 Brumos Racing's Porsche-FABCAR.
Third place went to Didier Theys and Bill Auberlen in a sparkling new No. 27 Lista JE4 Toyota-Doran, which turned its first competitive lap at The Glen II.
Donohue and Borkowski departed The Glen leading Borcheller by a single point while J.C. France and teammate Hurley Haywood fell from second to third place in the championship standings.
Finishing first in GT and fifth overall was Court Wagner and Brent Martini in the No. 33 Ferrari 360GT; first in GTS, seventh overall were Rick Carelli (moonlighting from NASCAR’s Truck Series), John Metcalf and Dave Liniger in the No. 05 Team Re/Max (Spirit of Daytona Racing) Corvette.
"I really like this series. It's a lot like what I came from. Besides, what else am I going to do tonight; sit in my motor coach?” Robby Gordon said just before the race, for which he teamed with Darius Grala in the No. 3 Cegwa Sports Toyota-FABCAR and drove it like a bat outta hell.
2004 - Given the frequency of rain showers coinciding with The Glen’s short-course race, monkey wrenches have been thrown at many of the New York wine country track’s early August races and thus was the case for the 2004 Sahlen’s 200 at The Glen.
Starting on a grid set by points after qualifying was washed out, with five laps remaining in the race Didier Theys watched co-driver Jan Magnussen drive their No. 27 Doran-Lista Racing Lexus to first place around a fading No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac-Riley of MaxAxe Angelelli and Wayne Taylor.
“Wayne is going to start and I know he will put it in first place, so we will have an easy race,” Angelelli said after qualifying was washed out.
Oops.
The SunTrust car’s race got still worse when the No. 6 Michael Shank Racing Lexus-Doran with (who else?) Oswaldo Negri Jr. and Burt Frisselle drove around it as well to finish second while the No. 10 SunTrust car stemmed its slide to take third.
Taking first in GT (9th overall) was the No. 22 PTG (Tom Milner) BMW of Joey Hand and Boris Said; first in SGS (16th overall) was the No. 37 TPC Racing Porsche driven by Spencer Pumpelly and John Littlechild.
2005 - For the first time since the Daytona Prototype class burst onto the Rolex Series' racing scene a Roush-Yates built Ford engine was the fastest overall DP qualifier for the 2005 CompUSA 200 on the 2.45-mile Watkins Glen International short course.
The pole-sitting No. 77 Ford-Doran of Italians Fabrizio Gollin and Matteo Bobbi would top the leaderboard with a race-high 29 laps on the point but would eventually fall to a 10th-place finish following a late-race pit stop.
As a result the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac-Riley of Wayne Taylor and MaxAxe Angelelli won their fourth race of the 2005 season that would end still better for the longtime racing duo.
Finishing second in only the team’s fourth race were Alex Gurney and Glen rookie Bob Stallings in their No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac-Riley.
"This is the first time that I’ve ever seen the track in person,” Stallings said.
Taking third was the (not green) No. 66 Krohn Racing/TRG Pontiac-Riley of Jörg Bergmeister and Christian Fittipaldi.
In a now-consolidated Grand Touring class, Paul Edwards and Jan Magnussen claimed Pontiac’s first GT-class victory in the No. 64 TRG Pontiac GTO.R. Second were Joey Hand and Justin Marks in the No. 16 F1 Air BMW Team PTG M3, with Spencer Pumpelly and John Littlechild third in the No. 36 TPC Racing Porsche GT3 Cup.
2006 - Coming into the 2006 Crown Royal 200 in one of its most dismal Rolex Series seasons was Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (y José) Sabates’ No. 01 CompUSA Lexus-Riley. Divers Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz by that time had managed to counter three wining efforts with a like number of 20th-or-worst finishes.
Thus it was a sweet victory for the CompUSA duo when they finished just ahead of second-place SunTrust Racing’s No. 10 Pontiac-Riley, driven by MaxAxe Angelelli and Ryan Briscoe.
"We’ve had our fair share of firsts but we’ve had a lot of bad luck, too," Pruett said afterward.
Third in the 26-entry, first-time Daytona Prototype-only field were Patrick Long and Mike Rockenfeller in Alex Job Racing’s No. 23 Ruby Tuesday Porsche-Crawford.
In its first full season and fading to 13th after Alex Gurney qualified first on the grid (1:07.496 at 130.674 mph) was GAINSCO Auto Insurance’s No. 99 Pontiac-Riley, co-driven by Jon Fogarty, who joined the team for the season’s fifth race at VIR.
2007 - Teamed with Memo Rojas for the bulk of the season (excepting the Rolex 24), Scott Pruett came into the 2007 Crown Royal 200 at The Glen race alone atop the Daytona Prototype driving championship standings.
In what had become a mano-a-mano championship battle, singles Pruett and MaxAxe Angelelli were separated by a scant two-points coming into The Glen..
Seven championship-points behind Angelelli in third were Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney. As it had the previous year, the blood-red GAINSCO Auto Insurance’s No. 99 Pontiac-Riley claimed the DP-only race pole, only this time Fogarty was at the wheel and claimed a record-tying seventh single-season DP pole record set by Max Papis in 2004.
Although the GAINSCO team had thus far scored a series-best five wins, its drivers had yet to stand atop the championship standings following a dismal first-race 22nd-place finish in DP (46th overall) in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Yet, even though they’d lay waste to the field and lead all but one lap of 82 total (Gurney compiled 48 lead laps; Fogarty 33), the GAINSCO pair took their sixth win of the season at the Crown Royal 200. Yet, Gurney and Fogarty would only inch closer to the top of the DP points race, exiting where they had come in; third in the championship fight with only two remaining races.
Finishing second in the race but moving into a tie with Pruett for the driving championship, however, was Angelelli, joined in a one-off* race by an admirably performing Memo Gidley in the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac-Riley’s cockpit for the Crown Royal 200. *(“Regular” Jan Magnussen had a schedule conflict.)
A Lap-69 yellow had given Pruett one last chance to move around his championship pursuers and pad his point margin but was left in a cloud of red dust to finish third with Rojas in their No. 01 TELMEX Lexus-Riley.
"Man, I wanted that yellow because it enabled us to tighten up and gave me a chance to move around Max and, maybe, the 99 car," Pruett said, "But when it went green Alex just pulled away from the both of us like we were stuck in quicksand."
2008 - After Brian Frisselle and his No. 61 AIM Autosport Ford-Riley (chassis No. 001) surprised a few folks by setting a new Glen short-course qualifying record of 1:05.243 (135.187 mph), NASCAR stars Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff Burton, Dario Franchitti and A.J. Allmendinger were among those gathered in the Rolex Series’ pits to watch the 2008 Crown Royal 200 at The Glen.
Perhaps as surprising was the outside-pole car, the No. 58 Brumos Racing Porsche-Riley, driven by David Donohue.
Then again, after Bob Stallings’ No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac-Riley over the three previous seasons scored two Crown Royal poles and one outside pole, perhaps as surprising was Jon Fogarty starting on the grid’s fourth spot.
Yet, the biggest surprise of all didn’t really even come with Frisselle and Mark Wilkins driving their Aim Autosport car to a subsequent race win as much as how the pair won.
Though Wilkins and Frisselle had come to The Glen after winning a real finish-line squeaker (0:00.064) in the previous race at Montreal, the AIM team’s surprising downright powerful performance was in its posting 79 lead laps (Wilkins 49; Frisselle 30) on the way to the checkered flag – second only to 82 leading laps posted by previous Crown Royal 200 winners Alex Gurney and Fogarty.
Compared to AIM’s Montreal win, finishing a massive two-seconds behind in second at The Glen were Fogarty and Gurney’s No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac-Riley. Coming into the race second in championship points, the driving pair exited The Glen in exactly the same position.
Donohue and co-driver Darren Law finished in third, scoring the No.58’s seventh straight top-5 finish in seven 2008 starts, as well as retaining their third-place championship standing. Strongly hinted, though, was the shape of things to come for the Porsche team’s 2009 season. Only that which awaited wasn’t exactly what the team and everyone else thought might come; that being another story for another year.
A 62-degree race-day temperature and an on-again, off-again rain-peppered race surface hassled Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas’ No. 01 TELMEX Lexus-Riley, their car being among those spinning through the race. A 13th –place finish proved to be the TLEMEX team’s worst performance of the 2008 season – it in the 10 preceding races having scored eight podiums, including six wins.
Having at that time compiled such a lead that the TELMEX team could’ve all but sat out the 2008 season’s remaining races, awaiting was a race-practice accident that could’ve proved a game-changer.
2009 - Joined again with the Grand Touring class for the 2009 Crown Royal 200 at The Glen, the Rolex Series Daytona Prototype driving championship points leaders came into the race tied in a four-driver, two-team knot.
In first were the familiar faces of 2007 champs Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney. And, in first, were defending series champs Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.
On a roll, Pruett and Rojas’ TELMEX team had scored two wins among four top-two finishes in the races immediately preceding The Glen.
Also on a roll were the guys over in the GAINSCO pits. After scoring earlier-season wins at VIR and Laguna, in the three races coming into The Glen, Fogarty and Gurney compiled third, second and first-place finishes.
With four remaining races and 924 first-place points spread over the four drivers, the 2009 Crown Royal 200 was shaping up to be an immovable wall versus an unstoppable force type of deal.
Complicating matters just 16-points behind in third were the No. 10 SunTrust (now) Ford-Dallara drivers, Brian Frisselle and MaxAxe Angelelli, who’ve been nip-nip-nipping at the leader’s heels since at least the season’s third race.
(By the way, MaxAxe once sold pushed lots of prosciutto so as to support his racing habit. So, Mr. Sahlen, if you need someone who knows how to ham it up . . .)
Making like a west Texas roadrunner chased by a hungry coyote, in an opening salvo Fogarty returned to pole-winning Glen form in Bob Stallings’ No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac-Riley, busting a record-setting 1:05.069 (135.548 mph) lap.
Following right behind in second was Rojas in the No. 01 TELMEX Lexus-Riley and, in third, (go ahead, take a wild guess) was Brian Frisselle and Team SunTrust (who bested brother Burt Frisselle, in the No. 61 AIM Autosport Ford-Riley, by one one-hundredth of one second).
Separated by less than three-tenths of one second and just when everyone was looking for a clean (or dirty) fight among the aforementioned three (or six), interlopers would dare commence to challenge the race’s established hierarchy.
The first was Ricky Taylor, who from Lap-45 through Lap-66 of the race’s 93 laps would lead a race-high 22 laps (matched only by Rojas) in Beyer Racing’s No. 13 Lennox/Brach’s Candy Chevrolet-Riley. (BTW: Happy Birthday, Rick! And should you race poorly this Saturday, everyone will know what you did on your 21st birthday.)
The second spoiler was Scott Tucker’s Level5 No. 55 BMW-Riley with Frenchman Christophe Bouchut (rhymes with boohoo) at the wheel and who tried his level best to win the race by jump-starting the field (no, Cummings, battery cables weren’t involved).
Lastly, but most importantly interloping, was the Mean Green Texas Machine (proudly fueled by highly refined petroleum), Krohn Racing’s No. 76 Proto-Auto Ford-Lola, driven by Nic Jönsson and Ricardo Zonta. The latter driver led the race’s final 21 laps to win going away (unfortunately, it really, really did do just that after The Glenn).
Shutout from leading even a single lap, Pruett still brought the No. 01 TELMEX Lexus-Riley home in second place, followed by Bouchut (rhymes with boohoo) in third and the GAINSCO gang in fourth, all but stymied after leading the race’s first five laps.
Running in the top-5 with fewer than 20-laps remaining, MaxAxe was at the wheel of the SunTrust car when Bouchut (rhymes with boohoo) muscled his way past, sending the SunTrust car into “innocent bystander” Bryce Miller and his No. 48 Marquis Jet/IPC Porsche GT3 - both ultimately landing in the pits and essentially out of the race.
Having earlier led the race for 12 laps with Brian Frisselle, the SunTrust car’s 12th-place finish – a second fall from grace in as many races – was tough on the psyche, even though their points gap actually narrowed to 14, and the accomplishment of which beats me (rocket science wasn’t my forte, which rhymes with “fort,” is French in origin and is synonymous with “strongpoint” or “personal strength,” and has nothing at all to do with musical term “forte,” which is Italian, rhymes with “day” and indicates “loud.” So, too, is “provolone” Italian, but that cheesy subject will be properly pronounced some other time).
Coming into their own in the 2009 Crown Royal 200 at The Glen were SpeedSource’s Emil Assentato, Jeff Segal and their No. 69 FXDD Mazda RX-8, where the two finally flexed some “short-race” muscle in winning GT.
Second in GT were Leh Keen and Dirk Werner’s Farnbacher Loles Porsche, whose first-place GT championship push was only further solidified.
In third was the No. 30 Racers Edge Mazda RX-8 of Dane Cameron and Tom Sutherland, which in 2010 would prove to be even more distracting to the “big boys.”
But that was then; this Saturday’s Crown Royal 200 at The Glen is “now,” with a 6 p.m. SPEED airing being live.
Later,
DC
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