With the first day of practice for Saturday’s Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Sunchaser 1000 complete, the GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing team of Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty and Jimmy Vasser kept their red No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac-powered Riley in its familiar position atop the timecharts. Gurney’s best lap, a 2:39.459 circuit of the 4.5-mile Miller Motorsports Park, was more than a second quicker than second-placed Ryan Hunter-Reay. Fogarty also turned in several flying laps not far behind Alex, while Vasser spent the day advising his co-drivers from the timing stand. Gurney and Fogarty enter Saturday’s season finale as the Daytona Prototype championship leaders, and a win for the 99 would assure them of team and drivers’ titles.
Driver/Owner Quotes:
Alex Gurney: “The GAINSCO car’s working really good. I got to do a new-tire run at the end of the first session and it was just hooked up. We’re happy with the balance and got through a lot of changes that we wanted to tweak on, so things are looking very promising for the race. The task now is to think about all the elements that will come up throughout a very long day of racing. I’m confident and happy.”
Jon Fogarty: “We’ll have a lot to deal with throughout a six-and-a-half or seven-hour race – especially with the 28 GT cars out there, it’s going to be busy. The particular layout of this track makes it quite difficult to get through traffic, as there are a lot of linked corners with no straightaways in between. It’s easy to get hung up behind a GT car, so you have to be patient and pick the spots where you can get by safely. That’ll be key to keeping consistent laptimes.”
Bob Stallings: “We feel very good right now about the things we can control – Alex, Jon and Jimmy are all quick, they’re working well with Kyle and the GAINSCO Pontiac is flying. There are a couple more things we’d like to dial on tomorrow, and we’ll see what happens then, but I believe we’ve done all that we can do to go out and fight for this championship.”
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