Race Report: Laguna Seca
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

While anything less than a one-two finish might leave room for improvement, Brumos Racing came away from Laguna Seca with plenty to celebrate, seeing both our cars take the checkered flag in the top ten for the first time this season.  Going into this fifth race of the Grand-Am Rolex season, the goal for both cars was to capitalize on their potential, avoid mishaps on track, and deliver the results of which both are clearly capable.

In keeping with what has been the trend this season, qualifying showed mixed results for our two cars.  The #58 car was qualified by David Donohue, who became the first Grand-Am DP driver this season to capture multiple pole positions, after again taking first place on the starting grid.  While our #58 car has not qualified out of the top seven all year, they had yet to capture a top ten finish.  David Donohue noted, “There’s no doubt about it, these guys put together a great car for us.  I was never concerned about not being able to catch somebody, the car was just fantastic.” Darren Law agreed, adding, “David had an unbelievable qualifying run and we showed everybody our potential.”

In contrast, our #59 car faced an uphill battle, starting from the back of the pack.  In the final practice session held the morning of the race, a blown engine took the crew back to the garage in a frantic race against the clock to complete an engine change, with just over two hours to complete the job.  As a result, we found ourselves in the ironic position of having one car first and one car last for the start of the race. But once again, our crew’s hard work and teamwork paid off, as both #58 and #59 members pitched in to get the car back on track in time to start of the race. Hurley Haywood had praise for the crew, saying, “It is really remarkable how quickly they were able to change the engine.  It is normally a half-a-day job, but we basically had a two hour window to get it changed, and they did it in time, and everything worked perfectly, so that’s pretty amazing.” Joao Barbosa encountered no problems with the car, either, saying, “They put the car back together perfectly - it was really clean and in very good shape - the car was like it was brand new.”

As the race started, Donohue held on to the lead in the early laps, until he encountered the first of the eight full course cautions the race would see.  He later regained the top spot, going on to post a total of 27 laps in the lead, the highest number of any driver in the race.  He said, “Brumos Porsche had the fastest car on the track in the early part of the race.  There were a few issues on restarts with the tire pickup, mostly on the rear tires.  I had some problems on the braking, but I always knew I could reel it back in, the car was just that good.” During his turn in the car, Darren Law posted the fastest lap of the race at one point, before moving the car up to take the checkered flag in 5th position.  “It was a great finish for us”, he said.  “As much as we would have liked to be on the podium, a top five is good, especially considering the first four races we’ve had this year.  We ran right in the front of the pack and we led the race - we were among the top three fastest cars on the track - so it was an excellent run.  The team did a great job and we’re very happy with the result.”

The #59 car had another strong performance, earning their third top ten finish of the year, despite starting at the back after their engine change.  Qualifying driver JC France started the race, delivering one of his best performances of the season. He worked hard on gaining position, steadily moving the car up through the field and avoiding problems before handing the car over to Joao Barbosa.  Joao had been able to move up as high as fourth place when a late caution cost him position and dropped him back to the seventh spot, where he ended the race.  Despite the top ten finish, Barbosa was understandably disappointed at so narrowly missing the top five. “It was a really good race and JC did a great job.  He brought the car in for me in really good shape.  I did the best I could, but lost a few places with the yellow on the last few laps.  It was a shame, because the car was so good, I thought we would finish at least in the top five.  It is the first race where we didn’t really have any issues with the car.  The crew did a great job with getting it set up so well.  If we can keep doing that, I know we will have very good results in our future races.”

Although the hoped-for podium was not in the cards for Brumos at Laguna Seca, the strong performance - of our crew, our cars, and our drivers - all give us cause to be proud of our team.  As we build on the positives from this race, we look forward eagerly to our next race, and another chance to (in the words of Brumos Racing veteran Don Leatherwood) “bring home the hardware” and see Brumos back in Victory Lane. 


Posted on 05/20 at 07:19 PM