TRG Closes Out Rolex Series Season with Podium Result in Utah
Tim George Jr. Claims Rookie of the Year Honors
No. 67 Porsche TOOELE, Utah - In the 2008 Grand-Am Rolex Sports
Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 season-ending
SunRichGourmet.com 1000 at Miller Motorsports Park, TRG finished the
season as it began in January, on the podium.
The No. 67 Cabana Cachaca/Tantra South Beach/johnnie-o clothing Porsche
GT3 team of Tim George Jr., Andy Lally and Patrick Long finished third,
scoring the team's eighth podium result of the season. The result
allowed George to clinch the MESCO Building for the Future Rookie of the
Year Award.
"I'm excited to lock up Rookie of the Year," George said. "It's a
great way to increase my momentum going into my ARCA program with TRG
Motorsports. It was really awesome to be running with Pat Long and Andy
Lally here. The team did a great job. We had a couple of deals with the
tires at the end, but it was a sweet run."
"That's really big for him," added TRG owner Kevin Buckler. "He's moving
up to ARCA next year on our TRG Motorsports program. His Rookie of the
Year this year is great. It just reinforces it. We've got a nice, young,
rising star here with Tim George Jr. and he really showed his mettle
this year. He drove really, really well all year barking with the big
dogs. He's ready to move towards his NASCAR goals. It's good for him."
George started the six-hour and 45-minute race from ninth on the GT grid
and drove the race's opening stint before turning the car over to Lally.
Early in his first stint, Lally was hit by another car, bringing about
an unscheduled pit stop. The three-time Rolex Series champion managed
to persevere and the No. 67 machine was soon back in contention for the
victory.
Lally turned the car over to Long and the Porsche factory driver
encountered an adventure of his own as the skies opened shortly past the
halfway point, sending several other cars spinning off course. Long not
only avoided the pitfalls, he also managed to take over the lead in the
race.
The way the rest of the race unfolded worked against the No. 67 team
as the race-winning No. 07 Pontiac received an incredibly lucky
race-deciding "wave-by" under yellow with only an hour remaining in
the race. The final 26 laps of the race were run without a full-course
caution, and despite a late charge by Lally, the team settled for a
third-place result.
"We had an excellent car, and I had some bonehead run into me," said
Lally. "In reality, it's my fault because I should have realized he was
a bonehead. That kind of set us back for the race, and unfortunately,
I'll take the blame for that. It was silly. But we had a really strong
car, and TRG just gave us the solid stuff. We had the fast race lap,
we had a great car and we were coming through at the end. We picked up
something on the tire. The tire was going down or we blistered it, and
we just couldn't make that last spot, but oh well."
"The elements of rain and dry and strategy certainly played a big part
in today's race," contributed Long. "I think, all in all, it was a great
result to be back up on the podium with TRG after being away for about
four or five years. Running with Andy, Kevin and Tim, they're just a
class act. I'm proud to be back. I think we had a car to win today, but
the chips just didn't fall our way."
After running most of the race inside the top five, the No. 66 Mitchell
Rubber/AXA Insurance Porsche GT3 team of Ted Ballou, Spencer Pumpelly
and Bryan Sellers came home seventh. Pumpelly started the race from
third on the grid but quickly pulled onto pit lane early in the race
to turn the car over to Ballou for his driving stint. Ted proceeded to
drive a fantastic second stint, keeping it on the lead lap and never
putting a wheel wrong.
Pumpelly drove a monster middle stint that was made all the more
difficult by the rain and the fact that the car's power steering system
stopped working. Nevertheless, he handed the car off to Sellers inside
the top five. Unfortunately, the power steering problems also plagued
Sellers, and fuel issues toward the end of the race relegated the No. 66
machine to seventh at the checkered flag.
"It was a challenge out there, definitely," Ballou said. "We had some
problems with our power steering, but the crew did a great job of
getting it back up and running. Spencer was running well and Bryan did a
great job. We just ran out of gas there at the end. We could have done
better, for sure, but we worked hard at it and it was a good result.
It's been great to run with Andy and Spencer this year. I learned a lot,
and I'm ready to come back next year and learn even more with Spencer."
The TRG/Riegel Autosport trio of John Potter, Josemanuel Gutierrez and
2005 Rolex Series GT champion Craig Stanton were also in contention
for a top-10 result in the No. 65 Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing/Total
R Insulation Solutions Porsche GT3 before some misfortune. Gutierrez
worked his way from a 21st-place starting spot to 11th by the end of his
nearly two-hour stint before turning the car over to Salt Lake City's
Potter.
Potter maintained the car's position and brought the car onto pit lane
to turn the controls over to Stanton when the team discovered water
leaking from the No. 65 Porsche. Stanton eventually drove his stint
after lengthy repairs before turning the car back over to Potter, who
brought the car home in 17th place.
"At the end, we didn't do very well because our car broke down,"
Gutierrez explained. "We had a little problem with a rock in the cooling
system, but we were doing quite well. We were out of luck yesterday in
qualifying and we started 21st, but I was lucky enough to get it to P11
and then I handed it to John Potter, who did a fantastic job. He handed
it back to Craig, also in P12 or P11, and we were sure that Craig could
get the car up to the top five, but that's when the failure developed.
We were very happy with the car, the guys in the crew did a fantastic
job. We were a little bit sad because of what happened, but we know that
we had everything we needed to get a top five, or at least a top 10
quite easily."
"It's a lot of fun to race at home," added Potter. "I've got a big
cheering section here, and that's kind of nice. We all worked hard,
all the drivers and crew, but things do go wrong sometimes. Josemanuel
started and did a great job. I got in after him and we got a bunch of
alarms, and it was unfortunate. I came in, and at the same time we were
doing a driver change, we realized we were leaking some water, but
we got back out there. We had a couple other problems, but we still
finished the race and that's great."
TRG closed out the season with four cars inside the top 15 in the GT
team standings. Leading the way was the No. 67 team, which finished
fourth in the team standings, followed by the No. 66 team in fifth.
Despite running partial seasons, the No. 65 team wound up 14th, followed
by the No. 68 team in 15th place. George also claimed the Bob Akin Award
for the top sportsman driver in the GT class.
"We're a really good team," Buckler said. "We're a great group of guys
and gals and we persevered through the good times and bad. At the end
of the day, we had a solid win this year (at New Jersey) and I think
we had seven or eight podiums. I'm looking forward to '09 and getting
back up front again. It was really nice to have the 65 guys come on
board and do such a stellar job all year, balancing everything in their
new program with Riegel Tuning. Ted Ballou did such a great job this
year, constantly improving and steady as a rock. We'll look forward to
having him back with us again next year and running up front. We really
delivered for Tim and helped him to win two fantastic titles. Everybody
did a great job and it was a solid season. We are looking forward to
even more in 2009."
-credit: trg
