Team Sahlen, powered by honeybeeBase.com, will be making their 1st Tire Rack ChampCar Endurance Series start of the season at the Sahlen’s Champyard DOG at the Glen event. This will mark the team’s 5th straight year of entering this Memorial Day classic race.
The team has been busy over the winter rebuilding their Mazda RX7s for the upcoming event. The team is on a streak 7 events of securing a ChampCar Class B victory with their Rotary Rockets. The team is hoping to extend this streak during this weekend.
Additionally, the team will be entering their Porsche Cayman in the EC Class. The team’s initial event racing the Cayman the Tire Rack ChampCar Endurance Series came at the recent “New Year’s Eve Celebration event at Sebring. In this event, the Team Sahlen Cayman secured the Overall and EC Class victory on both Saturday and Sunday’s 7 hour enduros.
Hopes for an excellent finish at Watkins Glen International twofold. The Glen is the home event for Sahlen’s Packing Company, based out of Buffalo, New York. As well the ChampCar race weekend is title sponsored as “Sahlen’s Champyard DOG at the Glen.”
The weekend will start with open practice on Friday. Then on Saturday will be the 1st of the double header 7 hour endurance events. After the Saturday race is complete, all the teams will get back up on Sunday for another 7 hour endurance race.
“We raced at the recent American Endurance Racing event in April. Even though that race was in different race cars, all of us have at least had many laps around Watkins Glen to refresh ourselves with the nuances of this classis sports car course.” – shared Joe Nonnamaker
Beyond the on track racing, Joe Sahlen is again very excited for the family outing on this Memorial Day weekend. Camping at the track the whole weekend will be a full complement of Sahlens – Joe, his wife Anita, sons Billy & Joseph, Joseph’s wife Kristen, and 5 grandchildren. Joe shared his thoughts “For the past few years, this Memorial Day weekend has become a big family camping event. I am looking forward to another funfilled time grilling some Sahlen’s Hot Dogs. We have always enjoyed camping at Watkins Glen, even as far back as the 70’s when it was just Anita and I here in our van watching the Formula One races. Flash forward to the present, and now there are our kids all grown up at the track with us, along with all our grandchildren. What more could you ask for than to be able to sit back after the races are over in the evening and relax with the whole family, what a joy.”
In last year’s Sahlen’s Champyard DOG at the Glen, there were over 100 cars take the green flag. Team Sahlen was at the top of the leaderboard for most of Saturday’s race, when a late race Red Flag altered the Fuel Strategy. This forced Team Sahlen into an extra 5 minute stop for fuel. Despite this extra stop, the team still secured 3rd Overall for the day. The Saturday race saw rain, rain and more rain which led to Team Sahlen working hard to survive the elements, and come home 5th overall and 1st in B Class
For this year’s event, Team Sahlen will again be returning with the same driver line up as 2016, 2017 & 2018: Joe Sahlen, Joseph Sahlen, Jacob Grimm, Joe Nonnamaker, Wayne Nonnamaker and Will Nonnamaker.
Wayne Nonnamaker shared his thoughts leading up to the race -“We were so very close to the Overall victory the past 3 years at the Glen. It would have been so nice to have won at Sahlen’s home race. The crew has put tremendous effort into the offseason to remedy many of the reliability issues we had last year, as well as working on some development to increase our ability to get to the front of the pack. It should a fun weekend, with over 100 cars entered again for this year’s race. I can’t wait for the green flag to fly and see how things shake out on track when the checkered flag flies.”.
The start of both Saturday’s and Sunday’s Sahlen’s Champyard DOG at the Glen will be at 9 am. The 7 hour races will conclude at 4 pm each day. Live timing and scoring of the event can be viewed by visiting www.champcar.com and clicking on the Live Timing button on the home page of the site.
Sahlen’s Champyard DOG at the Glen
With ChampCar Endurance Series
Weekend Schedule
Day/Time/Event
Friday – May 25th
1 pm – 5 pm = Practice Session
6 pm = Sahlen’s Tailgate Party
Saturday – May 26th
9 am = Race Start
4 pm = Checkered Flag
Sunday – May 27th
8 am = Race Start
4 pm = Checkered Flag
5 pm = Awards Ceremony
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