{"id":12259,"date":"2025-12-19T18:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T18:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/?p=12259"},"modified":"2026-03-05T21:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:47:23","slug":"team-sahlen-kicks-off-season-at-carolina-motorsports-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/19\/team-sahlen-kicks-off-season-at-carolina-motorsports-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Sahlen kicks off season at Carolina Motorsports Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

presented by Valco – Big Wrench Racing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team Sahlen, presented by honeybeeBase.com, will kicking off their 2026 race season at Carolina Motorsports Park with the Lucky Dog Racing League \u2013 powered by Hankook Tires.  The last time Team Sahlen competed in the series, it was at the final event ever at Pittsburgh International Race Complex.  In the Fall event in 2025, Team Sahlen was fortunate to secure the Pole Position for the event and then proceed to secure a fantastic 1st<\/sup> and 2nd<\/sup> OVERALL in the 7 Hour Enduro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joe Nonnamaker reflects back on that last event at Pitt Race  – \u201cWe always enjoyed racing at Pittsburgh.  It was an amazing track to drive.  The team was very fortunate over the years to secure many Overall victories there.  And to cap off our decade plus time on the track with one final victory was very gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team Sahlen will be entering their 1st<\/sup> ever race at Carolina Motorsports Park. But it will not be the team\u2019s 1st<\/sup> time driving on the track.  Going back decade plus in time, the team tested their Grand American GT Class Chevrolet Corvettes at Kershaw track.  Then a few years later, the team also brought their Grand American Daytona Prototype to shake down. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Will Nonnamaker shared his thoughts on returning to Carolina Motorsports Park \u2013 \u201cMy memory of this track is that it is very much like Gingerman Raceway in Michigan.  Has several flowing turns and some great sweepers as well as twisty bits.  Of course that memory was in a GT Corvette.  And I am sure that a lot will be different behind the wheel of our Porsche Boxsters now. \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also new for the team this weekend will be competing on Hankook Tires.  Hankook is the official Tire of the Lucky Dog Racing League \u2013 and is the required rubber during all events.  Team Manager Allen Wells shares his thoughts on this learning process \u2013 \u201cThe past Lucky Dog events we ran at Pitt Race were exempt from the Hankook Tire requirement.  Over the years we have raced on many different 200W rated tire compounds, Yokohama, Bridgestone, BFGoodrich, Toyo, Maxxis, Dunlop.  So we know from the past that each tire is a little bit different.  Even to the degree that each tire prefers a different pressure setting.  This will be our biggest learning curve all weekend.  Hopefully we can zone in on the right sooner rather than later and get down to the business of racing hard on the track to compete at the front of the Lucky Dog grid.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The weekend\u2019s events start on Saturday , February 28th<\/sup> with a morning practice\/qualifying \u2013 that will then be soon followed up with the start of the 7 hour event.   Sunday will dawn with an 8 hour enduro starting at 9 am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2026 Team Sahlen Campaign Partners:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

honeybeeBase.com, Malco Products, Porsche Beachwood, Discovery Parts, ECS Tuning, Tarett Engineering, Guard Transmission, HubstandsPRO, Maxima Racing Oil, Pagid Brakes, NGK Spark Plugs, CM Racing Products, Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, Design Engineering Inc., OMP Racing, Bell Racing, Forgeline Wheels, Optima Batteries, All-Fit Automotive, Capri Tools, Fabspeed Motorsport, Eibach, Rennline & Valco Cincinnati with Big Wrench Racing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

presented by Valco – Big Wrench Racing Team Sahlen, presented by honeybeeBase.com, will kicking off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12259"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12446,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12259\/revisions\/12446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsahlen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}