Posted (05/06/2009) -
Every year there is one of those weekends where it seems that the rain keeps coming and coming, with no end in sight. The 2009 New Jersey ROLEX weekend was one of those. And the biggest onslaught of rain seemed do come during the 2 hour and 45 minute span of the ROLEX race.
Team Sahlen had just previously raced the prior weekend at Virginia International Raceway. The crew had worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare the Corvettes for the race weekend.
"The Corvettes ran perfectly all weekend. I am proud of the crew for putting in the long hours at the shop. It certainly paid off with both #42 and #43 Corvettes running every single lap of practice, qualifying and the race." - states Crew Chief Mike Thomas
For 2009, New Jersey Motorsports Park decided to utilize the chicane system for turn 3 vs the sweeper turn that was in place for turn 3 in 2008. This was due to the fact that all the ROLEX cars were getting airborne over the back straight rise. Although the length of the track did not change, lap times were off from last year and no new track records were set.
In Qualifying, Joe Nonnamaker placed the #43 in 11th place and Joe Sahlen slotted in at 16th on the grid. Surprisingly the Qualifying session was in the dry
For the start of Sunday's premier event, a wreck at the front of the DP race, saw the GT race get yellow flagged before even taking the green flag. The first 1/2 of the race saw continual green/yellow/green/yellow action.