Posted (03/31/2004) -
With a strong three driver lineup we were excited about our chances as we headed to Homestead Miami Speedway for the second race of our Grand Am Cup Season. We had all three cars painted in the same striking red, black, and yellow paint scheme. Pair that with brand new crew shirts and we were looking very sharp for the second round of the season.
For the only time this season the Grand Am Cup was the headlining event for the entire weekend. It was an abbreviated weekend in which we only had official sessions on Saturday and Sunday. There was a long test day on Friday that we fully utilized.
There were over thirty cars entered in our class of the Grand Am Cup at Homestead. We won the Championship last season but the series has grown tremendously since last season. With that growth also comes more competition, competition we have not taken lightly. Friday's test day allowed us to try all kinds of different things. We tried new suspension set ups, new parts to make more power, and new parts to increase fuel mileage. As with most testing you do, most of what we did was not an improvement. We did find a few little things that allowed us to further refine our performance.
When official practice started on Saturday we were able to gauge how our speed was compared to our thirty other competitors. Craig Stanton and Terry Borcheller took Saturday to further refine our set up to their driving. This is the first year for these two drivers on our team. Both drivers are top notch professional drivers. They both have been complimentary of the set up we have on the car but any set up needs to be tuned to the driver. Terry and Craig took Saturday to get the shocks and sway bars settings where they needed them.
We were consistently in the top five in the practice times which gave us pretty good hope for the qualifying on Saturday afternoon. With the way practice had been going we expected to perhaps get one car in the top five. Craig Stanton qualified the #44 Porsche in second place. Joe Nonnamaker put the #43 Porsche in fourth place.
While Joe and Craig's performances were both impressive, the most surprising performance was turned in by Joe Masessa in our #44 Porsche. He had been adapting to the Porsche throughout the weekend. Before qualifying we went over his data from practice and found some spots for him to improve upon. Joe went out and executed the new driving lines we talked about and secured eleventh place in the thirty three car field.
There was a warm up on Sunday morning before the race. We used it to make sure that everything we did to prepare the cars for the race had gone without error. Terry and Craig practiced their driver changes during the session and the crew got a couple of practice runs at changing tires.
The race started at 12:30. The heat of the day made the track a little slicker than it was in warmup and the race times showed the lack of grip. Joe Nonnamaker and Stanton got a good jump on the field and ran in second and third for a period of time at the start. When things settled down Stanton was in second and Joe was in fourth.
Again Joe Masessa was very impressive. After going over his qualifying data, he made more improvements to his driving. During the race he moved up into sixth place. As the race wore on Masessa let a couple faster cars pass him including a Firebird. A few laps later the Firebird and three Porsches got into a wreck together taking all four cars out of the race. From reports from the three Porsches the wreck was the Firebirds fault, making Joe an innocent bystander. The wreck put the car into the garage for over an hour. When Will Nonnamaker went back out to finish the race he had little to do but limp the car around to gather points.
The next stage of bad luck for the team came when our #43 Porsche found the sand trap. After being pulled from the sand the #43 continued on but behind the pace. When I got in to finish the car it was two laps down. I had hopes of<
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