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MARCH
27, 2007
TOUGH
LUCK COSTS LAW AND DONOHUE A WIN AT HOMESTEAD ROLEX RACE
It was shaping up to be a winning performance for Porsche endurance
racer and Red Bull Brumos Porsche Riley team driver Darren Law and
his teammate David Donohue at this last weekend's Homestead Miami
Speedway round of the 2007 Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series
schedule. Bad luck would change the result though, as a late call
to enter pit lane under a full course caution dropped the Red Bull
machine down the order when it returned to the race. Law of Phoenix,
Arizona had been leading the race at the time, and was slowly building
a gap from the rest of the field, but with the pit miscue, the team
would eventually have to settle for a 6th place finish.
Qualifying
Both Law and Donohue showed good speed in the #58 from the start
of the weekend as Donohue topped the time sheets after the first
practice session. The team continued to make changes to the set
up and Law was able to turn a solid 1:14.712 of the 2.3 mile infield
road course to place the Red Bull liveried machine 5th on the grid.
Law was a mere four tenths of a second off the pole-winning machine
of Jan Magnussen.
Leading the Pack
The twenty-car Daytona Prototype field took the green flag Saturday
morning under cloudy rain-threatening skies although dry conditions
prevailed for the start of the scheduled 400k event. Law set a strong,
but tire wear conscious pace, and began to work his way toward the
front of the field. By lap 20 Law was securely in second place and
by lap 32 had assumed the lead of the race. Darren led through lap
50 and was beginning to open a gap to the #10 entry before a full
course caution came out. Unfortunately, just as Darren was passing
the entry to pit lane, he got the call from the team to come in
for fuel, tires and a driver change. With no other options available
to him, Darren was forced to take another lap as the drivers behind
him made their scheduled stops and benefited from track position.
By the time Law was able to pit and hand the car over to Donohue,
the Red Bull Porsche had dropped to 15th. Donohue drove a hard clean
stint, and worked his way up to 6th at the flag. On the face of
it, another top ten finish shows that the Brumos is continuing to
gain a competitive edge in the Daytona Prototype field, but both
Law and Donohue were somewhat disappointed thinking about what might
have been at Homestead.
Quote - Darren Law
"I am upset that we missed the pit on the caution. Our team
did a great job. We had a good car all weekend, qualifying was very
close, and our strategy was right. We were leading and only needed
a short stop for fuel tires and driver change but we had a communication
error and missed the pit entrance on the caution, so we went from
1st to 15th. It was unfortunate, but David did a great job in the
final stint to get us back to 6th. Every race we are competitively
running at the front. I am really hoping to get to the podium soon
this season."
Up Next and Info
Darren has a busy schedule ahead as he heads out this weekend to
St. Petersburg, Florida for the American Le Mans Series Acura Sports
Car Challenge. Law will be teamed with Seth Neiman in the #44 Flying
Lizard Motorsports Porsche GT3 RSR. He then joins the Lizards for
the Long Beach race in mid April, and will close out the month by
jumping back into the #58 Brumos machine at VIR.
For more info on the Homestead race log onto www.grand-am.com. Check
out www.americanlemans.com
for up to date scheduling information on Darrenšs races with the
Flying Lizards, and keep current with all of Darren's racing at
his personal website, www.darrenlaw.com.
Sponsors and Supporters
Darren wishes to thank CDOC for their continued support into the
new 2007 season. Darren depends on CDOC's racing expertise for all
his racing, safety and performance equipment needs. CDOC is a world
leader in the distribution of OMP, Alpinestars, Bell and HANS brands
as well as over 100 other performance lines. View the entire line
of CDOC performance and racing products at www.cdoc.com
Release Contact:
Mike Speck, JMS Motorsports
Marketing
JMSprservice@aol.com
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