Race Report:  Miller Motorsports Park
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

With only two races to go in the 2009 Grand-Am Rolex Series season, Brumos Racing headed west to Miller Motorsports Park in Salt Lake City hoping for a strong finish. A series of setbacks in several recent races have kept our team from a return to the podium despite many promising starts.  It seemed that trend was continued, rather than reversed, as mechanical issues in both cars during early practice sessions required lengthy repairs, resulting in lost track time for both.

A water leak brought #58 in to the garage after only a short time in the first practice session. Diagnosing the problem required pulling the engine, causing the car to miss the rest of that session. David Donohue qualified #58 in 6th and started the race, staying with the frontrunners throughout his stint. A timely yellow brought him in for the driver change to Darren Law. Strategy worked well and kept the car in good position before contact from the #61 car bumped Law off track. Resulting damage to the side pod also caused the door to pop open.  Despite the handling problems, the car stayed out on track, as a pit stop would have cost position that would be difficult to regain. Law held his ground well, eventually ending the day with a 9th place finish.

David Donohue reflected on the weekend, saying, “Missing the first practice really put us behind the eight ball, but Brumos did a great job getting us back out there after pulling the engine.  We made a lot of changes in the short time we ran and I think we had the best car on the track during the race, considering how little practice time we had. But as race luck would have it, Darren was run off track and that really hurt us a lot. We are already regrouping for next year but for the rest of this year we’ll persevere. All we can do is go out there and try to win our next race.”

In a situation similar to their sister car, an oil leak detected in early practice sidelined the #59 car as the engine was replaced.  J.C. France continued in his traditional role, starting the race after qualifying #59 in 10th position. He handed the car over to Joao Barbosa on the lead lap after a strong run. Barbosa advanced steadily, despite fierce competition, to bring it home in 7th place, marking #59’s best finish since the Mid-Ohio race in June.

Barbosa was encouraged by the improvement, saying, “It was a really tough race, but we did the best we could and the result was really positive.  Our main goal at this point in the season is to keep J.C. in the lead for the Trueman award, and this finish should help us towards reaching that goal.  We are looking forward to our last race of the season so we can bring home the Trueman Award for J.C.  Brumos keeps working hard to improve with every race, so maybe our last race can be the one we finally will win.”

Following the Miller competition, J.C. France retained a significant lead in the Trueman Sportsman competition, and appears to be well on his way to becoming the first repeat winner of that prestigious award.  Going into the final round of the season, Brumos’ #58 car is in 7th place in team points standings, followed by our #59 in 8th. The season finale race will be held at Homestead-Miami Speedway on October 10, 2009.

Posted on 09/22 at 01:05 PM