Ganassi has another rough weekend
Turner Motorsport’s Bill Auberlen and Paul Dalla Lana won the GT class in the 2¾-hour Rolex Series race at Mid-Ohio, and finished a close second in the Grand Sport class in the 2½- hour Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race. Meanwhile, in the Rolex Series' Daytona Prototype class, Ganassi Racing had its second consecutive weekend to forget, finishing eleventh in class after a stop to repair suspension damage.
Late in the Rolex Series race, Auberlen was battling for the lead with Eric Curran in a Corvette. Curran spun Auberlen’s M3 with two laps left. Auberlen recovered to cross the finish line second, but he and Dalla Lana were awarded the win when Curran was assessed a penalty for the incident that dropped him and co-driver Boris Said to fourth.
The Ganassi-Racing Riley-BMW was coming off a difficult weekend at Belle Isle, where the car was taken out in a lap one incident when Memo Rojas was hit by Gustavo Yacaman. Yacaman hit Rojas again early in the Mid-Ohio race, but this time his car caught fire while Rojas continued. Later in his stint Rojas had contact with Michael Valiante in the 8Star Motorsports Corvette DP that led to a broken bolt in the toe link of the Riley-BMW. Pruett took over, but two laps into his stint he had to come in for suspension repairs from the earlier incident. Later Pruett had to serve a penalty after making contact with Valiante. Valiante and co-driver Enzo Potolicchio went on the finish second behind the winning Action Express Corvette DP driven by Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi.
Plumb and Longhi edge out Auberlen and Dalla Lana in CTSCC
Matt Plumb won a two-lap shootout with Bill Auberlen to take the overall and Grand Sport wins in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race at Mid-Ohio. The caution period that preceded the shootout was the fourth in the 2 ½ hour race. Matt Plumb was in the Rum Bum Porsche that he shared with Nick Longhi, while Auberlen was teamed with Paul Dalla Lana in the #96 Turner Motorsport M3. Bryan Sellers and Mark Boden finished fourth in their Fall-Line M3.
Street Tuner pole sitter Jesse Combs and his teammate Jeff Mosing finished fourth in class; Tom Dyer and Andrew Novich won the class in their RSR Motorsports Honda Civic Si. Terry Borcheller and Mike LaMarra finished sixth in their Burton Racing 128i.
BimmerWorld ran tribute decals on each of their cars in memory of George Kissinger. Kissinger, who passed away in May, was a long-time crew member for BimmerWorld. He had also crewed for Walter Swick and GMG, and had raced in the Tire Rack BMW CCA Club Racing series.
Both the Rolex Series and CTSCC run again in two weeks at Watkins Glen.—Brian S. Morgan
