A Frantic and Chaotic race and race weekend concluded with an amazing drive by Dane Cameron to bring Team Sahlen home in 4^th place in GT at Road America.

The weekend started off a bit crazy with Team Sahlen having mechanical issues on both the #42 and #43 that caused both cars to spin and hit the wall at Road America’s Turn 5.  This put both cars back in the paddock to be repaired for body and structural repairs.  Thankfully both cars made it back out, and Team Sahlen ended the Test Day at the top of the GT charts. 

Practice Day 1 saw the #42 start off the day with Fastest Time in the 1^st session and 3^rd fastest in the 2^nd session.  #43 made great progress with set up all day long as well. 

Practice Day 2 saw the #42 loose a Power Steering rack, which put it back in the Paddock very early on.  #43’s constant set up progress came to fruition as Joe Nonnamaker was able to knock 2 seconds off his best time of the weekend.

Qualifying ended up getting rained out, so the grid for the race would be set by the GT Team Points Standings.  This placed the Team Sahlen Mazdas if #42 and #43 in 8^th and 14^th spots respectively.

The Morning Warm-up was a great prelude to the race, as racers seemed very excited about the event that was to occur in just a few hours. Will Nonnamaker shared his views on Warm-Up – “I couldn’t believe how everyone was behaving in warm-up.  Everyone seemed to be having like each lap was the last lap of the race.  I was catching 3 GT cars in the Carousel, when the last one in line spun right in front of me.  As I was taking precautionary measures to see where he was going to check up, a hard charging Daytona Prototype swept by me and narrowly missed the spinning Porsche. Ironically or unironically that same Porsche would have a coming together on the 2^nd lap of the race and put it out of the event.”

At the start of the race, Team Sahlen’s Wayne Nonnamaker dug deep and worked hard to rectify the poor grid position from no Qualifying by rising from 8^th to 4^th in a lap and half.  A very early yellow at lap 2 saw the field bunch back up.  Due to the severity of the wreck, the yellow became an extended caution.  This allowed Team Sahlen to roll the dice on #43 by pitting for fuel at the very end of the caution.  This placed the #43 in the fuel window of only having to stop one more time in the race.

As the race went back to green, Wayne charged up to 3^rd place in GT, while Joe Nonnamaker battled up to the top ten.  Wayne shared his thoughts on the early parts of the race – “It was very fast paced at the front of the pack.  It was the #57, #70 and myself away from the pack having a good scrap for the lead. Catherine Crawford Wallace worked hard to put a good set up on the car, and it certainly paid off with an RX-8 that was handling with the best out there.”

The chaos for the race then occurred as Wayne brought the #42 into the pits for Driver Change, Tires and Fuel.  Everything went according to plan, until the Fueling nozzle got stuck in the Mazda. This rather embarrassing affair caused Dane to have to come back into the pits for a stop and go penalty.  But Dane, being the true pro that he is, focused hard and charged hard every lap, never giving up, not knowing how the end of the race would play out.

Pit Stop time was not kind to the #43 Mazda as well.  On Joe Nonnamaker’s in-lap, he unfortunately had a lazy spin in Turn 5 that lost valuable seconds under Green Flag conditions. 

The race’s 2^nd and final caution cam on lap 40 of the race.  This was both good and bad fortune for Team Sahlen.  Good for #42, since it allowed Dane to pit and put fresh tires on, then catch back up to the back of the GT pack.  Bad since the yellow came out just after the GT leader put a lap on the #43.  A yellow 2 turns earlier would have placed Will Nonnamaker in the same position as Dane – Lead Lap, and ability to get fresh tires.

As the race went back to green for a 7 lap dash to the checkered, Dane Cameron put on a show for the ages.  When the race went back green, the #42 was showing as 10^th on the scoring boards.  From that point forward, Dane charged every lap, passing 1 to 2 cars every lap, until he concluded the race in 4^th place. 

Dane Cameron shared his thoughts after the race - "Road America was a race of ups and downs. Wayne drove a fantastic opening stint and made up 4 spots on his first lap! Unfortunately we had a problem on our first stop which meant returning to pit lane to serve a penalty. We kept our heads down, stayed focused and never gave up and we got a late yellow that put us back in the thick of the battle. Our car was quite good so we were able to mount a charge and make our way up the field finishing in 4th place. This is a fantastic result after a challenging weekend and to top it off helped us close the points gap a bit."

The final race result places the #42 Team Sahlen Mazda in 7^th place in the points.  And additionally raises Mazda to 2^nd in the Manufacturer battle.  Wayne Nonnamaker continues to run 2^nd in the Bob Akin Award Standings for Sportsman Drivers in GT.

The next event for Team Sahlen will be the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen on July 1^st at 11 am.  The race will be televised live on SPEEDTV.

Check out the latest Team Sahlen news at:

 www.TeamSahlen.com

The 2012 Team Sahlen campaign in the

GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series is supported by:

 Mazda, Mazdaspeed, SimXperience, Alcon, Racetech, NGK, Cool Shirt, Racing Print Media, Mothers Polish, TheRaceSite.com, Western New York Flash, Grassroots Motorsports, ASC Industries, Iannetti Design Ideas, CM Racing, Quarter Master, BBS Wheels, MSI Racing Products, Endurance Karting and Akron Aeros