GAINSCO Racing Set To Celebrate 100th Daytona Prototype With Daytona Win

DAYTONA BEACH, July 1, 2010: Two-time GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Champions GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing, and drivers Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty, will be part of the high-speed celebration Saturday at Daytona International Speedway (DIS) where the Brumos Porsche 250 At Daytona will mark the 100th race of the Daytona Prototype era. Round eight of 12 races on the 2010 schedule, the 2-1/2-hour timed sprint on the 3.56-mile Daytona road course is scheduled to start at 11:15 a.m. local time, Saturday, July 3, and can be seen in virtual live coverage that day at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.

GAINSCO, Gurney and Fogarty have finished no lower than second in the last three runnings of the Brumos Porsche 250, including a come-from-behind win in 2007 that was part of that season’s dominating run to GAINSCO’s first GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype Team and Driver Championships. GAINSCO, Gurney and Fogarty picked up a second set of season titles last year, and join archrivals TELMEX/Chip Ganassi Racing as the only repeat Daytona Prototype Champions in GRAND-AM Rolex Series history. That is just one standout achievement for GAINSCO and its drivers in Daytona Prototype competition, and the No. 99 “Red Dragon” squad can certainly be counted as one the division’s blue chip players as the milestone 100th race approaches.

“I think it’s been a great adventure to be a part of most of the first 100 GRAND-AM races,” Gurney said. “Just as a fan, I think GRAND-AM has put on some of the best races you could ever hope for, massively entertaining. In this age of aerodynamics, the GRAND-AM formula has managed to strike the right balance where cars can actually pass each other constantly throughout a race. As a competitor, it has been extremely rewarding to road race against some of the best names in the business. Every weekend is its own little war and we love to be in the fight. I look forward to all of our future battles!”

In addition to joining only the Ganassi team and its lead driver Scott Pruett as repeat Daytona Prototype Champions, GAINSCO and its drivers have several Daytona Prototype records to their credit. The list includes 2007’s seven race wins and 10 poles, season records in both categories, and an unmatched run of front-row starts in every race that season. Fogarty is also the all-time Daytona Prototype pole winner with 13 top starting spots to his credit.

“It is a great series, very competitive with close racing most years, and all of this with several motor and chassis manufacturers winning races,” Fogarty said. “Very few other series around the globe can make that claim and none can when you consider the budget on which we are able to do a full season. I am, of course, grateful to have had the opportunity to move into a top-tier series, as the timing of my open-wheel championships couldn't have been worse in the context of what was going on in open-wheel racing at the time. It’s good to be an established part of the series and to hold records, but it still feels very fresh to me and I have a lot more I would like to achieve in GRAND-AM. I am just excited to be striving for these goals with a bunch of like-minded friends on the GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing team.”

The immediate goal for GAINSCO this weekend is to score its first win of the 2010 season in the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet Riley. The team has endured a variety of setbacks in the year’s first seven events, but some recent progress and a new technical partnership on the engine front could combine to make one of GAINSCO’s best races even better this weekend.

“The July Daytona race has been an event where we’ve always had an excellent car,” Gurney said. “I had the fastest race lap last year despite not being all that quick down the chute. For whatever reason, it’s been easier for us to nail the setup for the heat of this race as opposed to the 24-hour race where the temps are a little cooler. We led on the last lap the last two years, at least briefly, and both times lost out in the final stretches. We’re trying hard on our end to be better on that front and we’ve recently seen some gains, so we’re optimistic.”

GAINSCO is now running a five-liter Chevrolet V8 prepared by ECR Engines and is looking forward to seeing how the motor performs at Daytona after some initial runs in the last three races on traditional road courses at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Watkins Glen International and Lime Rock Park.

“Personally, I feel like the BMW and the Ford have advanced further than the Chevy in the last year,” Fogarty said. “They have the ability within the rules and physically to do so. I believe there is still low-hanging fruit, so to speak, within their specs. Not so for us; our gains are smaller and there are just no big things left to do without a rule change. But that is not to say we are not trying to maximize everything we can within the rules. It looks like some issues have developed for the BMW that should be of help to us, but Ford is always strong and a Porsche V8 won the 24 this year. So, we are surrounded by strong competition, but we don’t mind that; in fact, we like it. We go for handling and strategy. Daytona is less of a handling track, but we can play the strategy game and try to maximize our straightaway speed to protect ourselves. I believe that is our play. Of course, straight-up racing hard is always one of our cards as well.”

Another certain challenge this weekend will be Florida’s trademark summer heat and humidity. Temperatures will be in the low to mid 90s with the heat index soaring well past 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Rain is a 40-50% probability every day.

“The biggest difficulty we’ll face this weekend undoubtedly will be the heat and humidity,” Gurney said. “We’ve become accustomed to all-out misery in the car, just swamp-like conditions, and I’m expecting plenty of that this weekend. We just do our best to stay hydrated and fit, and make sure that the cooling we do have doesn’t fail.”