ERIC CURRAN RACING

Eric Curran and Boris Said finish 6th in Whelen Corvette in Rolex GT;

Curran and McCalmont finish 7th in Continental Tire series in CKS Camaro

VIRginia International Raceway, Alton, VA

May 14, 2011

Between other cars sliding off course, a serious amount of rain and some tricky track conditions Eric Curran returned home from the Bosch Engineering-sponsored GRAND-AM sports car races at VIRginia International Raceway, proud of two solid finishes and a busy day running both the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race, and four hours later, then the Rolex Sports Car Series race.

In the Rolex race, Curran and co-driver Boris Said started on the outside pole in the Marsh Racing/Whelen Engineering Chevrolet Corvette C6, second fastest qualifier and only behind a Chevrolet Camaro GT.R.

"That's our best start of the year in the Whelen Corvette. I doesn't beat our two poles last year but it's not so bad." Curran smiled. "It also made me happy to see an all-General Motors front row in not only our GT class, but with the GM engines in the front row Daytona Prototype class, too."

With the race starting on a wet track, the cars trundled around behind the safety car for the first 16 laps, waiting for the rain to slow down. During that time, Said pitted for various adjustments to the wiper assembly in a futile effort to find visibility out the windshield.  As soon as the green flag waved, Said's lap times dropped quickly and a somewhat dry race track started to appear.

Said turned over the Whelen/Marsh Corvette to Curran on lap 28, but Curran still faced many more laps on slippery conditions until the track started to dry and he could pit again to trade in the Continental rain-tread tires for dry track slicks.

Eric ran his fastest lap on the next-to-last lap, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to steal fifth place from the Brumos Porsche, 2/10 of  a second ahead of him.

From left: Robby, Todd, Mark

"We had a good car this weekend, but the wet conditions made it difficult to try to pass at any time. Cars were spinning off left and right but we keep in on the track for a decent 6th place finish."

In the two-hour, 30-minute GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race, Eric and Canadian co-driver Ashley McCalmont recorded a seventh place in the CKS Autosport Chevrolet Camaro GS.R.

Curran took the checkered flag only 12 seconds behind the race winners and scored the best finish of the day among the five 2011 Camaro entries.

"We don't yet have the car yet to beat the BMWs or the Mustangs, but our CKS Camaro keeps getting stronger and stronger every weekend. Kirk Spencer and the CKS crew gave Ashley and me a great car today," Curran said.

"This is the first year for the CKS Camaro program and the guys are doing a great job getting the car sorted out. For being only four races in with this new program vs. most of the competition having two-plus years under their belt, I think we are making some good progress.

"I've won four Continental series races at VIR in the past and was hoping to make it number five today, but we aren't quite there yet. But keep an eye on the #00 Camaro in the near future."