THE LINE
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 01:49PM February 3, 2010
(Grand-Am)
The Action Express Racing Riley-Porsche V-8 driven by Terry Borcheller, Joao Barbosa, Ryan Dalziel and Mike Rockenfeller won the Rolex Daytona 24 Hour Grand-Am race last weekend. The Porsche engine powering the entry was a Cayenne-based V-8 built in New Braunfels, Texas by the Lozano brothers - a development frowned upon and unauthorized by Porsche - which makes it all that much sweeter. The race-winning car was prepared in Brumos Racing's North Carolina shop. Congratulations to all.
(Grand-Am)
(ALMS)
Adrian Fernandez and Aston Martin Racing will be definite contenders for the win at the 58th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida, as the Mexican star joins forces with the UK’s premier endurance team for America’s greatest sports car race. The partnership - said to be a three-year deal - was announced Monday, and will have Fernandez drive a works Aston Martin V12-powered prototype at Sebring, Long Beach and Le Mans in 2010, with the team looking at additional races worldwide following the 24 Hours. “We are looking forward to a great season of racing and we hope to have another strong showing at Le Mans,” AMR team principal George Howard-Chappell said. “I’d like to welcome Adrian to the team, I’m sure with his experience he will be a great addition to our driver lineup.” Aston Martin was the first major international factory team to enter Sebring in 1953. It finished second place overall (and won its class) that year in the 12 Hours with Reg Parnell and George Abecassis driving a DB3. An Aston Martin DB3S finished fourth overall and won its class in 1956 with Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori driving. Aston Martin won at Le Mans three years later with its DBR1, with Shelby and Salvadori paired again. It returned to Sebring with a GT1 victory in 2005, 49 years after its previous Sebring win. The British manufacturer, wildly popular with its UK base, also was the GT1 champion at Le Mans in 2007 and 2008 with its DBR9. The American Le Mans Series will open its 12th season with America’s greatest sports car race, the 58th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida from March 17-20. The green flag will fall at 10:35 a.m. on Saturday, March 20, with live coverage on SPEED. The annual American Le Mans Series Winter Test is scheduled for February 22-23, also at Sebring International Raceway.
(ALMS)
(Grand-Am)
The No. 70 Castrol Syntec SpeedSource RX-8 driven by Sylvain Tremblay, David Haskell, Nick Ham and Jonathan Bomarito took the lead in the GT class at lap 563 in the 20th hour of the Daytona 24 Hour and held the lead to the end, completing 707 laps of the 3.56 mile Daytona circuit for a total distance of over 2,500 miles. "Everyone at Mazda in North America and Japan is proud of our association with the Castrol Syntec SpeedSource team. This is their second win at Daytona and the 23rd for Mazda and is dedicated to our dealers and 9,000 club racers. They are the heart and soul of our operation. Now that our season has begun we are looking forward to a year-long battle for the Grand-Am GT Manufacturers Championship, ” noted Robert Davis, Senior Vice President, Product Development and Quality, and the man responsible for Mazda’s North American motorsports operations under the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development banner.
(Grand-Am)
The Matt Plumb/Gianluis Bacardi No. 13 Rum Bum.com BMW M3 E92 won Friday's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Fresh From Florida 200 in the GS class. Plumb finished 0.107-seconds ahead of Charles Espenlaub (No. 48 Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3) in the two-and-a-half hour event. Spencer Pumpelly and Steve Miller third in the No. 41 Colo Logistics Porsche 997. In the Street Tuner class, Lawson Aschenbach (No. 74 HPD/Skunk2 Honda Civic Si with co-driver David Thilenius) made it two consecutive victories for himself, putting Compass360 Racing back in the winner's circle at Daytona for the first time since 2007.
(Ford Racing)
Monster World Rally Team driver Ken Block debuted his Ford Fiesta at the first Rally America race of the year in Atlanta, Mich. Block, making his first start as a Ford driver in his newly formed global rally program, piloted the 2011 Fiesta to the quickest time in the first stage of Rally America’s 2010 Sno*Drift Rally. Unfortunately for Block a suspension component failure in Stage 7 left him unable to finish and prematurely ended his weekend in Northern Michigan. The Monster World Rally Team will spend the next month getting ready for the second stop of the Rally America Series, February 26–27, the Rally in The 100 Acre Woods in Salem, Missouri. Block will also spend time preparing for his World Rally Championship (WRC) debut in Mexico in early March where he will pilot the Monster Energy Drink Focus RS. For more information on Fiesta, Ken Block and the Monster World Rally Team go to FordRacing.com and MonsterWorldRallyTeam.com.
Randy Bernard. The longtime CEO of Professional Bull Riders, Inc., has been named CEO of the Indy Racing League. The announcement came from Jeffrey Belskus, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation, the home of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race and owner of the Indy Racing League. Bernard will begin March 1. Bernard said that for the 15 years he has been the CEO of the PBR he’s been “blessed to work with such a great sport, and I enjoyed the success that we all shared together. I truly believe I can make a difference with the Indy Racing League, and I see tremendous potential. The IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights have intense action, high-stakes competition, extreme athletes, a diverse international schedule, great sponsors and a very passionate fan base.” It has to be better than Gene Simmons, right?
(Brian Cleary)
Bobby Rahal, president of the Road Racing Drivers Club (RRDC), named FIA Senate President Nick Craw as the 2010 recipient of the prestigious Phil Hill Award at a dinner preceding the Rolex 24 At Daytona. The Phil Hill Award has been presented annually since 1993 to the person who the RRDC feels has rendered outstanding service to road racing. The recipient may be a driver, entrant or outstanding member of a sanctioning body. The award is named in honor of America’s first Formula One World Champion, and is not only a tribute to his masterful accomplishments on the race track, it also recognizes his contributions as a great ambassador for the sport. Hill passed away in 2008. Craw was elected in 2009 as President of the Senate, the number two position in the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile. The FIA is the governing body for worldwide motorsports that includes 100 million members and features the Formula One and World Rally Championships. Based in Denver, Craw had been an FIA Senate member while also head of the American Automobile Competition Committee of the U.S. (ACCUS). Prior to accepting that position, he was President and CEO of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) for 17 years, and Executive Director of U.S. SAILING. A Princeton graduate with a Harvard MBA, Craw had been involved with the Project HOPE hospital ship, VISTA and the Peace Corps, and was a sports-car racing driver from 1968-1977, mainly as a factory BMW driver. He resigned as Peace Corps Director in 1974 in order to race full-time and, as a professional race-car driver, claimed the IMSA Goodrich Radial Challenge Championship in 1973 and 1975. "I'm honored and humbled and grateful," said Craw. "I got started in this business to go racing; I just wanted to beat people. And one thing and another evolved and long after my racing career was over I was either fortunate or unfortunate enough to be drawn back into the sport and the result has been extremely rewarding and gratifying. When I was elected to this group back in the dark ages it was at the time, I thought, the highest honor that could be bestowed on a racing driver. Championships only last for a year but RRDC is for life. And this group has maintained that culture and that spirit over the years and shows great promise to the future. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to give something back to the sport that's given me so much and I hope to be able to continue to do that on behalf of this club, and I thank you for the honor." Craw was then grilled by Speed TV's preeminent race commentator Bob Varsha, fielding questions on subjects that ranged from the future of Formula One competition and the return of Michael Schumacher to Formula One, to the status of all forms of motorsports in the United States.
The American Le Mans Series. Seven full-time ALMS teams with nine entries will be in this year’s running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s premier sports car race. The Series’ representatives cover three of the four classes in the 78th edition of the French classic organized by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), which announced the list of accepted entries Thursday morning. Drayson Racing (Judd-powered Lola B09/60 coupe), Autocon Motorsports (AER-powered Lola), and Highcroft Racing (HPD ARX-01c) are on the list. “While our drivers have been to Le Mans and I've raced there four times, only a handful of our crew guys have done the race so we will be on a steep learning curve,” said Highcroft team owner Duncan Dayton. "We are going to have to earn it, work very hard and be a quick study because most of the competitors we will be fighting with have been there before.” While the team competes in the ALMS as Patrón Highcroft Racing, advertising laws in France will not permit the team to display its regular colors. “We’re going to be headed to France with new colors in June,” Dayton confirmed. “We would have loved to fly the Patrón flag in the biggest endurance race in the world, but we now have a great opportunity to introduce new marketing partners to a massive international audience.” Other invitations went out to Corvette Racing (C6R), Risi Competizione (Ferrari F430 GT), Flying Lizard Motorsports (Porsche 911 GT3 RSR) and JaguarRSR (Jaguar XKRS) who will all square-off in GT. The famous race will be run June 12 - 13.
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