< Back to News Home Nonnamaker's at Top of Total Miles Driven in Koni Challenge

Posted (05/01/2008) - Reprinted from www.Grand-Am.com

Quick, what driver has accumulated the most racing mileage in the history of the Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series?

Wayne Nonnamaker had no idea, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was the driver on top of the list. Since 2001, Nonnamaker has raced 7,780.869 miles in Grand-Am Cup and KONI Challenge competition - leading second-place Andy Lally by more than 700 miles.

Nonnamaker also led the top 50 on the all-time mileage list in all but two years of the series. He's completed more than 1,000 miles in every year except 2002 and 2007, with an all-time series-leading 2,166 miles in 2003.

The Canton, Ohio, driver had his lowest career total in 2007, 94.86 miles, and doesn't expect to record any miles in the series this season.

"I don't think I'll drive in the KONI Challenge this year," Nonnamaker said. "This will be my first year not driving in the series or its predecessors since I started professional racing in 1999."

The next driver in line to assume the lead would be another Nonnamaker, Wayne's older brother Will. With Lally (7,058 miles) gone NASCAR Trucking and third-place Sylvain Tremblay (6,338) concentrating on GT, Will is next on the list with 6,108 miles, including 135 in the 2008 season opener at Daytona.

Nonnamaker's family has been racing street stocks since the inaugural IMSA Firestone Firehawk Endurance Championship in 1984. Joe Nonnamaker, co-drove a VW GTI with Bill Pate that season, and it wasn't long before his sons joined in.

Will - who ran the unique Planet Earth program to raise funds for ecological causes - was ST rising star in 1996.

Wayne's first year was 1999, when the two brothers won two races and shared the Motorola Cup ST title in a Mazda. His other biggest moment was in 2003, when he won four races and shared the KONI Challenge GS title with his father in his first year of rear-wheel drive competition.

While he's not racing in the KONI Challenge, Wayne is busy in the Rolex Series GT division, joining his father, brother and sponsor Joe Sahlen in a pair of Corvettes. His best year in the Rolex Series was his rookie season, when he won a pair of 2004 SGS races from the pole, including a solo drive in the Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway.

"The biggest difference in the GT class is learning the speed that things come at you," Wayne said. "There's not much difference from the Porsches we had been driving in GS. If we had come straight from the Acuras or Mazdas or the smaller cars, it would have been a big difference. But the nice thing when you start off in a slow speed cars, the things you learn, the momentum, translate well into the high-horsepower cars. I think if you go in the other direction, sometimes it's tough, because no matter what kind of car you're in, smoothness matters."

Will Nonnamaker and Sahlen earned a seventh-place finish in Sunday's Bosch Engineering 250 at VIR.
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