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Team Sahlen's Joe Nonnamaker fights hard for Bob Akin award at Montreal
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Posted (08/07/2007) - Team Sahlen knew that Montreal would be being a big test in the quest for the Bob Akin Award. Entering the weekend, Joe Nonnamaker was a close 2nd to Emil Assentato. Joe was a scant 61 points behind Emil's 3793 points. The Crew faced several on track and off track challenges during the weekend. The famed Circuit Gilles Villenueve is on an island in Montreal. Getting to and from the track was a unique situation of utilizing the metropolis city's subway system. And the walk to the pits from the paddock was a hefty 1.5 mile walk. The Team Sahlen crew adjusted well to the nuances of the event and got to work right away preparing for the event. Thursday brought two practice sessions. The drivers utilized this valuable track time to learn the track. Right out of the box, Team Sahlen set the 8th fastest time in the first practice session. Set up changes were made to the HRPWorld.com Corvettes for session two that improved their speed and drivability to the unique circuit. "The HRPWorld.com Corvettes were running real strong right out of the box. This track is very challenging. Its exciting to drive on the same track as Formula 1 runs on." - stated Wayne Nonnamaker Qualifying was bright and early Friday morning. Joe Nonnamaker placed the #43 in a solid 14th grid slot. #42 suffered a freak mechanical glitch that forced Wayne to miss the session. At the start of the race, Joe Nonnamaker was able to have nice clean start and worked his way forward. Wayne started #42 from the back of the grid. Pitting on lap one, Team Sahlen choose to make #42's mandatory 45 minute pit stop early. This strategy worked out well as an early yellow put all the GT teams into the pits for their mandatory stop. On the restart, things were looking good, with Wayne all the way up to 4th place. Unfortunately, a failure on the cooling system sidelined #42, placing it in 17th at the end of the race. The #43 HRPWorld.com Corvette kept rolling along. Joe Nonnamaker drove a majority of the race, finishing a very credible 15th place. The #69 SpeedSource Mazda driven by Emil, placed only 3 spots up in 12th place. Joe only lost 8 points in the event. "With the points so close, the Bob Akin Award will come down to long 1000 km event at Miller. Strong reliability will be the key to the event. The crew is going to work extra hard during this break to ensure we have a strong car." - states Joe Nonnamaker Absent from the event was Joe Sahlen, who was forced to miss the race due to business obligations at home. The next and final round of the 2007 ROLEX Grand American GT series will be the 1000 km race at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. The event will be televised on SPEED TV on September 15th starting at 1 pm. The 2007 Team Sahlen ROLEX GT Campaign is support by HRPWorld.com, GOJO, ZIP Products, Kempthorn Auto Mall, HAWK Performance, Forgeline Wheels, Cool Shirt, TheRaceSite.com, TheRaceMarket.com, Grassroots Motorsports, HOTSEAT, Holliday Canopies, Alcon, CM Racing, Joe Gibbs Motor Oil, Genesis Technologies, Endurance Karting, Racetech Seats, and Corsa Performance. |
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