Petersen/ White Lightning Shows Strength On And Off Infineon Raceway

Petersen/ White Lightning Shows Strength On and Off Infineon Raceway

 

SONOMA, Calif., July 18, 2004 - The No. 31 Westward Ho Casino/ MMPIE/
PAWS/ Michelin Porsche 911 GT3 RSR again showed strength finishing tenth
in GT class at Infineon Raceway. The tenth-place finish was not
indicative of the team's performance in today's Infineon Grand Prix of
Sonoma, the fourth round of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). Craig
Stanton, Long Beach, Calif, qualified the Petersen Motorsports/ White
Lightning Racing Porsche third in GT class and started the Porsche for
the Michael Petersen-owned team. In what was one of most competitive
battles of the year, Stanton raced nose-to-tail with the GT class
leading Nos. 23 and 24 Porsches in the early going reminding all of what
team won the 24 Hours of Le Mans GT class the past two years. However,
as the top-four Porsches ran in sequence, tenths of a second apart,
Stanton made contact with the No. 24 Porsche on lap 18 (30 minutes into
the two hour, 45-minute race) at the entrance to the hairpin-turn while
racing for second-place in class. The car suffered driver-side radiator
damage forcing a complete radiator change and fluid refill. The team
showed the depth of the team returning the No. 31 Porsche to the race on
lap 30 (approximately 25 minutes later). Stanton repaid the team's
effort by immediately turning lap times competitive with the leaders. 

 

David Murry, Cumming, Ga., took-over driving chores on lap 53 in 11th
position. The team moved back into the GT top-ten with approximately
50-minutes to go in the race and Murry regularly turned laps faster than
the class leaders in the final 45-minutes of the race. The Las
Vegas-based race team finished 19th overall. 

 

Dale White: "Today was all about the fight. We were racing at the front
early on and David was the fastest car for the last 45-minutes of the
race. The car was definitely there today. After the incident, the
Petersen/ White Lightning guys fought through that and just kept
charging all race long. Mike [Petersen] made the call to repair the car
and get back into the race and it was definitely the right call. It paid
off. I am really proud of how hard the whole crew worked."

 

David Murry: "Here at Infineon we didn't get the finish and the result
we were hoping for. But we were certainly more competitive than we were
in the past. I think the car is much better. We qualified third; Craig
did a great job. Even when the brand-new grip of the tires was gone, the
Michelins were still good. The car was still good. So that is what we
have been looking for. We still need to find a little more time. We need
to find about another half-second in the car and we'll be right there
with the front. I'm happy with the performance today. Hopefully the
result will reflect that next week at Portland."

 

Craig Stanton: "We qualified third yesterday with a great effort by the
whole team. We started third and we were running confidently in third.
We weren't pushing the Westward Ho/ MMPIE/ PAWS Porsche very hard.
Unfortunately, we had a mishap on the track and we got into the 24 car.
I really feel bad about that. But more importantly for our team, we had
a bit of a milestone within the team as far as communications. I'm
pretty proud of the guys. Today's effort doesn't really show the
positive effort the guys are putting in. I am grateful that the
Petersens are allowing us to do this with all of our other sponsors in
Michelin and Porsche."

 

For more, please visit www.petersenmotorsports.com.