TRG - Laguna Seca preview

triple threat

 

TRG will field three Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars in the May 1 Rolex Sports Car
Series race at Laguna Seca Raceway. Series GT championship leaders Marc
Bunting of Monkton, Md., and Andy Lally of Dacula, Ga., will lead the charge
in the No. 65 Auto Gallery/TRG Porsche. Their new teammates Steve Johnson of
Bristol, Va., and Robert Nearn of London, England, will share the No. 88
Porsche.

 

Dave Master of Houston, Texas, and Santa Fe, N.M., will rejoin TRG in the
No. 63 Porsche he drove to an eighth-place GT finish in the Rolex 24 At
Daytona in February. His co-driver Dan Pastorini of Washington, Texas, has
roots in Master's home town – he was quarterback for the Houston Oilers
before he traded turf for track.

 

Johnson shares Pastorini's NFL history – he played for the New England
Patriots and Dallas Cowboys – and his love of racing. "I believe in a
balanced lifestyle with family and business coming first," he said. "But
when it comes to a hobby, there is nothing that I would rather do than 'haul
the mail' in a 911 GT3."

 

first and goal

 

Dan Pastorini has excelled in professional baseball and football, and in
boats and dragsters. He set four world records in drag boat racing and was
the third top-fuel racer to exceed 270 miles an hour. But he thinks
sports-car racing is more physically demanding.

 

"When we played football, a play would average about four seconds. If you
run 70 plays a game, you have a little more than four and a half minutes of
total concentration," he said. "You do a two-minute drill to drive the ball
the length of the field to get a field goal or a touchdown. Driving a race
car is like that two-minute drill, but it lasts for an hour and a half to
two hours. It's quite taxing."

 

Rolex rout

 

Andy Lally still cherishes the first of three Rolex watches he has won in
competition though the watch no longer works, a casualty of a crash in his
alter-sport, street luge.

 

"We had a race in San Diego and it was a practice run with a friend of mine
who is one of the best lugers in the world," he recalled. "We got together
in a fast 60-mile-an-hour kink. We both went for the same road and it didn't
work very well. We ended up tumbling down the road as I high-sided it. I
must have whacked the watch pretty good. After I stood up and dusted myself
off and checked that everything was okay, the first thing I looked at was
the watch. It wasn't ticking anymore."

 

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Sylvia Proudfoot
HYPERLINK "mailto:sylvia@spurcom.ca"sylvia@spurcom.ca
403 287 3945