Earns AutoWeek "Move of the Race" Award

May 2, 2009 Millville, NJ Eric Curran held the Driver's Championship lead going into the SCCA SPEED World Challenge GT series race at New Jersey Motorsports Park with his #30 Whelen Engineering Corvette. Things went downhill throughout the weekend. Eric started the race sixth fastest after having a small issue in qualifying on the 2.25-mile New Jersey circuit. As the cars were getting lined up for the pre-griding of the race, the Whelen Corvette had a dead battery, forcing Eric to start from pit lane, rather that the 6th place starting position he'd earned.   As the race started, Eric quickly moved forward, and by lap two, he had moved to seventh place, got back to his qualifying position by lap three, and passed the Corvette of Tony Gaples on lap four to take fifth place.

The next improvements came with more time and risk. "A light rain started falling on about the eighth lap," Curran reported. "You don't want to go sliding off any track, and it was really easy to do in those conditions and such little tire grip."

After a yellow flag slowed the field the cars got underway again, and Eric continued his charge towards the front. "The Whelen Team did a great job all weekend trying to find the best set up for the race, and we found it."

James Sofronas and his Porsche was the next victim for Eric, elevating himself to fourth place on lap 10.

That was as good as it got, literally.

Randy Pobst, who had jumped the start in his all-wheel drive Volvo, and had to serve a stop-and-go penalty in the pits, caught up to Eric on lap 22, after the field had followed the safety car on laps 19 - 22 for the rain situation.

"Then Randy jumped the restart and drove right by Brandon (Davis) and I," Eric said. "In the wet or slippery conditions, the All-Wheel Drive cars had a unfair advantage to the rest of the rear wheel drive cars."

Sebring winner Tony Rivera bobbled his Porsche on lap 24, giving Eric fourth place back. He finished there, 6.572 seconds behind race winner Andy Pilgrim, who was followed by Volvo teammate Pobst, then Brandon Davis and his Mustang.

Sonny Whelen, Eric's car owner in the Whelen Engineering / Marsh Motorsports Corvette program, qualified ninth fastest and finished eighth.

Eric's finishing position was changed to a non-number after the race, when the car was found to be not in "technical compliance" for unspecified rules. "I'm disappointed with what happened in the tech shed," Eric said. "The Corvette is struggling to stay competitive and  SCCA chose to disqualify us for a part we had been using for 24 races. It was a part that SCCA's officials have had in their hands and we have discussed over half a dozen times. It seems to get really questionable when the tech staff changes and the new staff doesn't know where the old staff left off. "I do give credit to SCCA for enforcing the rules. I like that. But something like this, versus focusing on cars in the class that are two seconds a lap quicker than anybody else in the field ...? The tech department has much bigger issues than us," Eric said. "Any time the rules are such that a new car can come out of the box and be dominant this quickly, it has to be obvious the preparation rules weren't written correctly. It's sad that things have come to be predictable. This is the only series where an All Wheel Drive car weighs 150lbs. less than a rear wheel drive car," he concluded.