Team Sahlen entered the KONI Challenge event at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with their #43 Mazda RX-8 against a full field of 30+ ST class racers.  

Practice Session #1 started out well, with the #43 securing 9^th fastest time. And then Team Sahlen followed that up with a fine 11^th place Session #2.   Although Joe Sahlen settled for 17^th slot in qualifying, this early practice pace showed itself in the early stages of the race.  Joe quickly moved up the grid settling into 11^th place.  

Then Joe Sahlen started feeling a miss on track.  The miss started getting worse and worse until eventually, he was forced to pit.  The good news was that if a cure to the ailment could be found, this would be the only pit stop for the #43, as it could make it to the end form here. Will Nonnamaker quickly got in the car, and the Team Sahlen crew added fuel, tires and looked under the hood.  

"The Mazda was handling really well, and we were making great progress.  Up until the fuel pick up, I was having a blast." - stated Joe Sahlen

Upon his 1^st few laps, Will noticed no problems with the Mazda and the problem seemed to have gone away.  Quickly Will got up to speed and started moving up the charts as everyone in the ST field stared making their pit stops.  Then the miss came back and forced the team to play a game of pitting for fuel every few laps.  This netted a 22^nd position

"I believe we had a solid Top 10 car today, had we not had the fuel pick up.  We have worked hard on the handling, and the progress was evident on track this weekend." - stated Will Nonnamaker

The 2009 Team Sahlen KONI Challenge Series Campaign is support by HRPWorld.com, HAWK Performance, Cool Shirt, TheRaceSite.com,  Grassroots Motorsports, Holliday Canopies, CM Racing, Genesis Technologies, Endurance Karting and Mazdaspeed.