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- Collision knocks Marsh/Whelen car from New Jersey race -
June 18, 2010
Millville, NJ
Boris & Eric
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Eric Curran and new co-driver Boris Said were looking like potential top 5 finishers in Sunday's GRAND-AM Rolex Series race at New Jersey Motorsports Park, until a collision with another car, an hour and a half into the race, put the red and white #31 Marsh Racing/Whelen Engineering Chevrolet Corvette on the sidelines.
On a blazing hot day with temperatures over 95 degrees and with typical New Jersey summer humidity, Curran took the green flag as the sixth quickest qualifier in the GT class of the Rolex series.
"I'm really impressed with what Teddy Marsh and his crew have done with this car since, say, the race in Alabama, where we didn't even feel confident enough to continue racing our untested Corvette at that time," said Curran.
"Now we have a total package that had allowed us to qualify less than a second off the pole in the last three races. We continue to get closer every weekend!"
Eric Curran
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Curran quickly jumped up to fifth place on the first lap and started pressuring the #70 Mazda and eventual winner of the race. "I was able to run with the top four cars for my opening stint. The Whelen Corvette continues to be better every race, thanks to all the
hard work from the Marsh racing crew," he said.
The Whelen team pitted Curran early and Said jumped into the cockpit to run the middle stint of the race. The strategy was for Curran to get back in and take the checkered flag for the last hour of the 2 hour and 45 min race.
The pit stop cost the team 11 places; Said was in 16th place in the class when he exited the pits, now 1m13sec behind the leaders, but by lap 41, he had moved his way to eighth place.
The team's race ended on lap 44, however, when Said and Mazda racer Charles Espenlaub collided in a turn, putting Said and the Corvette up on two wheels for a moment and damaging the right rear suspension.
"The car just wouldn't turn," Said noted, "from all the rubber 'marbles' we were picking up off line by running side by side with the Mazda." Think of trying to walk across a floor covered with small roller bearings.
The contact caused enough suspension damage that the car was retired for the day.
"Three races in a row now we've qualified 4th, 5th, and 6th in the GT class. In April we were more than two seconds a lap slower than the leaders in qualifying, now we're well under one second and only four-tenths of a second in Ohio," Curran said.
"Those last few tenths of a second are what makes you race winners, and they're the hardest ones to find. They require a lot of testing and development to get there. The main competitors are years ahead in development of the Whelen/Marsh program but their gaining very quickly"
The race was televised live on SPEED TV, earning the team and the Whelen name some air-time on the popular all-racing network.
The next race is August 6-7 at Watkins Glen International where the Rolex Sports Car Series race will be a Saturday evening support show to the NASCAR SPRINT CUP race. Practice and qualifying will be on Friday. |
