Posted (11/04/2004) -
By Wayne Nonnamaker
The last time I wrote our last diary there were three races remaining in the season and we were in an intense battle for the Grand Am Cup Grand Sport Championship. Two of those races were back to back races at Virginia and Barber, both of which we won. Those two victories put us first and second in the Team Championship and put our driver, Craig Stanton, four points behind Terry Borcheller.
The final race of the season was held at California Speedway this past weekend. We were running five TheRaceSite.com Porsche 996s in the event in hopes of bringing home the title. The intense ten race season, with fields of over thirty cars per race in the Grand Sport field, had come down to this final race.
The drama leading up to this point in the season was pretty intense. Terry Borcheller had won the first three races as Craig Stanton's co-driver. At the fourth race Borcheller joined the #11 Powell Motorsport Cadillac effort and David Murry was secured as Stanton's co-driver.
During practice we made minor changes to our setup to be ready for the race. The California track is quite a bit bumpier than the Barber Motorsports Park facility where we were at previously so we had to make some shock changes to adjust the car. Practice times seemed to indicate that this championship would be a hard fought one. Our #43 and #44 Porsches and the #11 Cadillac topped the time charts in practice.
Qualifying rolled around and Stanton put the #43 on the pole position. Because we were doing a lot of set up changes before the race, Stanton had not had a lot of laps. Since he is a native Californian, he knew his way around the track. Devon Powell, Borcheller's starting driver, qualified fifth.
Due to a case of the flu, my dad decided he would start the #41 Porsche leaving Will Nonnamaker, my brother, as my co-driver in the #44 Porsche. Dad wasn't sure how long he would be able to drive, and the #44 Porsche was leading the Team Championship. Since he drove the entire Paul Revere race earlier in the season by himself, I knew if he was thinking he didn't feel well enough to drive, he must be pretty sick.
Stanton led from the start of the race but Powell quickly moved into second. As the race wore on, Powell took the lead from Stanton. Powell's race took an unfortunate turn however when the car was hit by a lapped vehicle. The team pitted for repairs but it took seven laps for the team to make repairs and by then it seemed as if the championship was over and the title was ours. Stanton cruised around, taking it easy, before turning it over to David Murry late in the race. With thirty minutes remaining Murry noted that he was losing power and that he smelled radiator fluid. The crew tried to diagnose it from the pits but couldn't.
I was driving the #44 Porsche at the time and as I came up on the #43 Porsche of Murry I was shocked by what I saw. The right side of the motor was hanging off the car, bouncing off the road. I called it into the pits, and that same lap Murry was black flagged by officials due to leaking fluid.
The crew diagnosed the problem as a broken motor mount and went to work changing the motor mount. Lap after lap passed as I was driving on track and the crew continued to work on the problem. At the time I was finishing the #44 Porsche and it was difficult to keep my concentration as the problem with the #43 was on my mind.
The crew fixed the problem in less than 20 minutes and sent Murry back on his way. He made the last two laps and in those last two laps passed two parked cars putting him three spots ahead of the rapidly closing #11 Cadillac. Those three spots meant that Craig and Terry both ended the season with exactly 260 points. The tie breaker was the number of wins, of which Craig had six and Terry had four.
Despite Bill Pate, our chief pit strategist, telling me all this over the radio, I had to see it for myself. After the race was over I had to run to
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