One of my site members (Leh Keen) is a GT3 Cup driver (the part in bold print).
Daytona 24: Porsche Motorsport race report
Racing series GRANDAM
Date 2007-01-28
ALEGRA MOTORSPORTS PORSCHE 911 GT3 CUP WINS ROLEX 24 GT RACE AT DAYTONA; BRUMOS PORSCHES RUN IN TOP THREE IN DAYTONA PROTOTYPE CLASS FOR MUCH OF THE FLORIDA CLASSIC
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- January 28, 2007 - The Miami, FL - based Alegra Motorsports entry of Carlos de Quesada, Scooter Gabel, Marc Basseng, and Jean-Francois Dumoulin, with their # 22 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup racer, won the GT class at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona by a mere seven seconds after 668 laps of racing.
Dumoulin, from Trois Rivieres, Quebec, and the most experienced Grand American driver of the group, admitted the team was an underdog against the larger Porsche teams with professional drivers, but they worked hard to prepare the car for this grueling event and the drivers stayed out of trouble. With 30 minutes to go, and both the Porsche and the Pontiac in the pits at the same time, the Alegra crew serviced their car and got it back on the track sooner than their competition, sealing the win.
"The car was running hot near the end of the race, and the second-place Pontiac closed to within seven seconds, but we short-shifted the engine, were easy on the brakes, and stayed away from traffic to stay in front," said Dumoulin, the Grand-Am ST1 champion in 2002 and the GS1 champion in 2003. He also is a previous class winner (SGS in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup) at the Rolex 24.
"We struggled through winter test days and most of practice without getting the set-up right, and then, right before qualifying on Thursday, we got it right," said de Quesada, owner of Alegra Motorsports.
Marc Basseng, the German member of the driving team, is a consultant for the Porsche factory as a test driver of the Porsche 911 race cars at the Weissach research and development center.
The #85 Farnbacher Loles Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Dirk Werner, Jorg Hardt, Pierre Ehret and Leh Keen) lead the GT class for 397 laps, or more than 15 hours before an oil leak and an overheating engine ended their race with only one hour and 15 minutes to go. Before that, the #74 Tafel Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, driven by Wolf Henzler, Eric Lux, Jim Tafel and Dominik Farnbacher took the lead at the start, but fell back in the seventh hour when a flat tire came apart and broke a radiator and suspension pieces.
In all, Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race cars finished in six of the top ten places in the GT class. It marks Porsche's 61st class win at the 24 Hours at Daytona, and the 36th win for a Porsche 911 - based race car.
Brumos Racing Porsche Prototypes Contend for DP Victory
The #59 Brumos Porsche Riley, driven by Hurley Haywood, with co-drivers J.C. France, Joao Barbosa, Roberto Moreno - with David Donohue added as a contingency driver, gave the V8 Lexus and Pontiac- engined cars a spirited chase for the overall victory before finishing fourth overall at the Rolex 24. The car was only one lap behind the leaders with 90 minutes to go.
The David Donohue/Darren Law/Buddy Rice/Scott Sharp #58 Red Bull Brumos Porsche Riley, which lead the race briefly during the early evening hours and ran consistently in the top three for the first ten hours, met an untimely demise when car, with Scott Sharp at the wheel, was hit by a lapped car and suffered a cracked bell housing, causing the team to change the rear end and lose almost an hour in the garage. Buddy Rice did lead the race briefly, and Darren Law turned the race's fastest lap early in the evening.
Mechanical problems and/or on-track incidents slowed the other Porsche-powered prototypes including:
--# 47 TruSpeed Motorsport Porsche Riley (Timo Bernhard, Charles Morgan, Rob Morgan, BJ Zacharias) transmission oil leak and broken radiator (eighth overall).
--#23 Ruby Tuesday Alex Job Racing Porsche Crawford (Patrick Long/Jorg Bergmeister/Romain Dumas), late-race crash, a failed alternator and broken transmission (18th overall).
--#39 Cheever Racing Crown Royal Porsche Crawford (Sascha Maassen, Emmaneul Collard, Christian Fittipaldi, Eddie cheever, Jr.) gear cluster and transaxle (24th overall).
--#16 Howard Motorsports Porsche Crawford (Rob Dyson, Chris Dyson, Guy Smith, Oliver Gavin), engine (55th overall).
