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ALMS P2 - Dempsey Racing Back In Action At Mid-Ohio


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LEXINGTON, Aug. 3, 2012: Dempsey Racing shook off some Thursday issues that forced them to miss practice and took to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Friday for the first run of the weekend with drivers Patrick Dempsey, Joe Foster and Dane Cameron at the wheel of the No. 27 Trina Solar/GNC Beverages/Motegi Racing/Dempsey Racing Lola-Judd in preparation for tomorrow’s American Le Mans Series Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge.

The Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge will be broadcast live at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT on ABC this Saturday, August 4.

Longtime Dempsey Racing teammate Cameron is joining Dempsey and Foster as a co-driver in the No. 27 for the first time in an ALMS race but he has played a key role in the testing and development of the new P2 program this is making just it third race start at Mid-Ohio. He turned the No. 27’s top lap time of 1:16.224 in Friday’s second practice, third fastest in P2 and sixth overall in the 31-car field.

“It was a good first session, right where we needed to be, and it was good to go get comfortable in the car again,” Dempsey said. “Not too aggressive, just get comfortable and put down some laps, we got 10 laps each. It is great having Dane here, getting some feedback from him to see what the car is capable of doing and he has a great relationship with the team, so that chemistry is really important to develop the car and the setup this weekend.”

The Dempsey Racing squad missed Thursday practice in total when a faulty fuel cell bladder was found in the team’s new Lola B12-80.

“We are behind the eight ball because we didn’t get to do the test day yesterday,” Foster said. “We found an ancient and leaky fuel cell in the car, and with the help of the Dyson team, we were able to borrow a fuel cell from them, and get out today. We are sort of starting our weekend, unfortunately, when everybody is a third of the way into theirs, so we will just focus on the process. Dane got some laps, I got some laps, Patrick got some laps, we are going to make a bunch of changes to the car and see how it goes next time.”

Dempsey once again gave full credit to his team and crew for responding well when racing’s inevitable challenges emerge.

“The guys did a great job last night,” Dempsey said. “They worked all night long and got the fuel cell in the car. It’s unfortunate, the problem we had with the fuel cell cost us the whole day yesterday. That puts us a little bit behind today, but this year is all about learning, and the more mistakes we make this year the less we will make next year. So we learned a lot and we won’t make those mistakes again.”