It’s back-to-back in the Grand-Am Series: Just one week after the race in Alton, where Porsche pilots David Donohue (USA) and Darren Law (USA) took the championship lead with their Porsche Riley, round three in the New Jersey Motorsports Park is now on the calendar. Lining up to start are Porsche works drivers Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France). After the season-opening 24 Hours at Daytona, changes to the regulations handicapped the Porsche Riley which now starts with more weight and without a sixth gear.
‘In Alton we took off from the first row and were leading until we were thrown back in the field when Romain was handed a drive-through penalty,’ says Timo Bernhard. ‘We went full bore to catch up but the technical handicaps put on us prevented us from making up lost time.’
Penske Racing – winners of the 2007 and 2008 American Le Mans Series with Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas – runs a 510 hp Porsche Riley on the 4.02 kilometre circuit near Millville. Brumos Racing fields two Porsche-powered Daytona Prototypes. For the Brumos team, backed by one of the oldest Porsche dealers in the USA, based in Jacksonville/Florida, the season is, by now, running almost according to plan. After their Daytona victory, David Donohue and Darren Law brought home a podium result from Alton and are now eager to defend their championship lead in Millville. They receive support from Joao Barbosa (Portugal) and JC France (USA) who share driving duties in the cockpit of Brumos Racing’s second Porsche Riley.
Porsche is also strongly represented in the near-standard GT class, with seven 911 GT3 Cup Grand-Am racers lining up on the grid in New Jersey. Four of these sports cars from Weissach are run by the US-based TRG squad, who took off into the 2009 season with a win at the Daytona 24 hour race. Farnbacher Loles Racing takes up the race, which last year ended with a GT win for Porsche, with two 911 GT3 Cup Grand-Am cars.
The race in Millville gets underway on Sunday, 3 May, at 13.00 hours local time (19.00 hours CEST) and runs over 250 miles.
