Sprinting To The Finish,Brumos Heads West

Brumos Racing Heads West For Their Final Sprint Race of 2007

August 22, 2007

Jacksonville, Florida – The penultimate race on Brumos Racing’s 2007 calendar will
take place this Saturday, August 25th, in Sonoma, California, on the winding 2.52 mile
natural terrain road course at Sears Point’s Infineon Raceway. The event is again a
Daytona Prototype-only race, currently listing a roster of eighteen competitors. The
weekend’s track time will be shared by Indy Car and Historic Grand Prix events, but
scheduling allows for four practice sessions for the Rolex drivers on three consecutive days.
This 2.5 hour (or 99 lap) endurance race for Grand-Am’s premier DP class is the final
sprint race on an annual calendar marked with some of the greatest endurance races in sports car racing history. The Grand-Am season begins at Brumos’ doorstep with the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and ends in three weeks on America’s longest road course at
Miller Motorsports Park near Salt Lake City, UT. The 7.5 hour Sunchaser enduro
season finale races into sunset, the time that experienced endurance racers like Brumos’ team leader Hurley Haywood refer to as “the transition”.

“The Transition: It‘s the most difficult time to race,” Haywood states. With his years of
experience in endurance racing, Haywood has long had the enviable reputation of an
accomplished night fighter. “Everyone thinks the dark hours are the hardest. I think it’s
the time when the sun is coming up or going down”, he added. Fortunately, the
Brumos team will not have to contend with that difficulty at this weekend’s sprint race,
with the green flag set to fly in California’s early afternoon.

Brumos has long been considered America’s leading endurance racing team with
multiple wins in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. However, Sears Point has not proven to be
quite as kind to the Florida-based team. It is a race circuit where Brumos’ famous
white-red-and-blue racing livery has visited victory lane just once in the company’s
five-decade history of racing Porsches.

In July of 1979, the late Peter Gregg drove his white-red-and-blue Porsche 935 to
Brumos’ sole victory at Sears Point, competing in the Sprite Grand Prix Winston GT,
and winning the championship title for himself and for Brumos. In 2007, Grand-Am
rules require co-drivers to share the driving chores. The rule invests the flat-out 150
minute sprint race with the flavor of a longer endurance race. However, those rules
were not in effect back in 1979, as Peter Gregg captured that victory driving solo.

It was a memorable event for Brumos, as Gregg captured the pole and the fastest lap
time, in addition to winning the race with a sizeable margin of well over one minute.
His wire-to-wire cruise to the checkered flag was even more notable due to the stellar
field competing that day. Qualifying just behind second position driver Jim Busby was
a young Hurley Haywood, driving a Vasek Polak Porsche Turbo.

The race on that day was for 40 laps or just over 100 miles. Gregg spent the majority
of those laps holding off a strong challenge by David Hobbs, who had won on that
course the two previous years. Haywood was also a strong challenger, despite a flat tire and pit stop early on in the race, which put him back on track a lap down. Subsequent incidents took a toll and affected almost all of the front running contenders, including Hobbs. Gregg avoided the attrition and held onto the lead for the checkered flag. Hurley Haywood, who had avoided the serious incidents, ended the race in 3rd place, just behind 2nd place finisher Ted Field, who was one of the few drivers able to run an incident-free race. (IMSA records from 1979 also show that Gregg’s first place netted him $4,900 in prize money – while Haywood settled for $2,000 for his third place results.

The 99 lap (or 2.5 hours) Armed Forces Grand-Am 250 starts at 2:45 PM Pacific
Daylight Time on Saturday August 25th and is scheduled to be broadcast via tape delay starting at 7:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time on Speed TV.

Article posted on: 07-Aug-22