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Curran Stays Consistent; finishes 5th in Canada |
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May 18, 2009
Mosport Park, Ontario
 Eric Curran did his best to perform a unique “three-peat” in SCCA SPEED World Challenge GT series racing at Mosport Park, but a fifth place in his #30 Whelen Engineering Corvette was as good as it would get this year. “Winning at Mosport three years in a row would have been great but didn’t happen this year,” he said.
“Now that we’re four races into the season, SCCA Pro Racing’s officials have made changes to the specifications for some cars to make them faster, and they’ve slowed other cars,” Curran said.
“And on a fast road course like Mosport Park, where we’re lapping at over a 100mph average speed, the Corvette’s aero package, which had proved to be a winning package in the years past doesn’t seem that way anymore. I was able to make up time in the corners and in the braking zones but not enough to overcome the lack of hp due to the intake restrictors on my Corvette’s engine.”
“Bottom line is, the Corvette has stayed with the same heavily-restricted package, and the competition has been allowed to get much faster,” he lamented.
Eric started the race fifth on the Driver Championship points chart, after getting shifted back from leading the points before the New Jersey results. “We’ve still not received a final decision from SCCA on our disqualification at New Jersey a couple weeks ago – I’m hoping SCCA can resolve it quickly.”
Whelen Engineering teammate and owner Sonny Whelen qualified his Corvette eighth quickest and improved one spot in the race. His fastest race lap was only .611mph slower than Eric’s best effort, which he turned on the race’s fourth lap.
“Sonny did a great job at Mosport, he really enjoys this track and deserves his seventh place finish,” commented Eric
“The fastest race lap for seven of the top eight finishers ranged between 104.385 and 104.264 miles per hour, so you can see why it was so hard to make a pass,” Eric noted. “The long back straight at Mosport was tough for the Corvette, being the slowest car on the mph chart.
“I didn’t get the world’s best start to the race, either,” he said. “I went from fourth on the starting grid to seventh at the end of the first lap, and had to work our way back to the front.”
Indeed, Eric and the red Corvette were up to sixth place by lap seven when he passed Dino Crescentini’s Porsche, then to fifth on lap 25 when Randy Pobst and his Volvo dramatically slowed on the front straight and dropped from third to seventh place.
“The Whelen Engineering team is quite willing to become the fifth different winner this year, and see if we can get back some of the 90-some points we lost in New Jersey. We’d be second in points right now if it wasn’t for that, barely behind Brandon Davis,” Eric said.
“I hope SCCA will make the proper adjustments to allow the Corvette to be a front running car again.”
Eric’s next World Challenge GT race is July 2 – 4 at Watkins Glen International.
The Mosport World Challenge race was taped for television and will air on SPEED TV July 7 at 2pm ET.
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