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- Overheating sidelines team after 4.5 hours -
June 5, 2010
Watkins Glen, NY
Although the new Marsh Racing/Whelen Engineering Chevrolet Corvette became faster as the weekend went on, the team was eventually sidelined after four hours, 27 minutes into Saturday's six-hour GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series race on the world-famous Watkins Glen International circuit.
 "It was a good feeling to run in the top seven for the first stint of the race. We're really only two solid race weekends into knowing this new Corvette," said Eric Curran, the team's lead driver. "Before that, we had two what we call ''test races," figuring out what the car needed. We're still not as strong as the more-experienced teams in the GT class, but this race proved, for a while, that we could hold up our heads to these competitive GT teams."
Team owner and regular co-driver Sonny Whelen elected to watch the Watkins Glen instead of through the windshield of the #31 Corvette and was excited to see his car running in the top 10.
In addition to Curran, the team's three-driver lineup included Californian Brandon Davis, who shared the car at Lime Rock a week earlier, plus Canadian Ken Wilden.
The race was televised live on SPEED TV, earning the team and the Whelen name a lot of air-time on the popular all-racing network.
"What knocked us out after 131 laps - compared to 179 laps for the class-winners," said Curran, "was that a light shower started falling about 45 minutes into the race.
 "It wasn't enough to make it necessary to go to 'wet' tires, but it was slippery enough on slick tires that Brandon eased the car off the track as did many other drivers. The car's nose and radiator air intake were damaged just enough so that after a couple hours, it was overheating. We knew that we might have some trouble at some point with the radiator not getting the air it needed but the car still went on another three hours before the heat got to it"
Despite needing to keep one eye on the water temp gauge, all three drivers, with help from the Marsh Racing crew during pit stops, continued to make the car faster. "The Marsh crew did a good job with the pit stops and the prep on the car. We still have more work to do but the teams hard work is showing results."
"My qualifying time put us tenth on the grid with a one minute, 51.583 seconds on this 3.4-mile road course. Never am I happy with a tenth place qualifying but the fact that I was just over a second off the pole shows our progress," said Curran.
 "We had a very good race car today which could just about keep up with the cars and teams who have a lot more experience with their cars, and their Pirelli tires than we do. We're a long way down the road from what we had at Virginia International back in April, though."
Curran expressed optimism moving forward throughout the rest of the season. "Each weekend we get stronger as a team and the car continues to get more competitive."
The next race is June 18 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
"Sonny and Teddy have put together a great team, and we're all determined to get this #31 Whelen Corvette to the front of the field," Curran said.
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