Posted (02/15/2010) -
Team Sahlen entered the 2010 ROLEX 24 Hours with 1 main mission: Run a very consistent pace, stay out of trouble, and keep the car out of the garages, and on the track for much of the race as possible. And the hope was that with this strategy, this would be good for a Top 10 Finish at the end of the grueling twice around the clock endurance event. But to secure a Top 10 would not be easy, as the 30 car GT field would be a strong line-up championship caliber Teams and Drivers.
"There are a lot of strong Teams that just run the 24 Hours. And often this is the only ROLEX series event they run all year. Team such as Flying Lizard and Alex Job Racing are have long been GT standouts. Then throw into the mix teams such as Turner Motorsports, Orbit and Bullet Racing, and the list gets longer. Of course this doesn't even include the regular season competitors, who all came with strong line-ups." - stated Jay Chapman, Team Manager
But Team Sahlen took a methodical approach to the crew's 1st time racing the Mazda RX-8. 1st there was the December test, where the Drivers and Crew all took their time getting used to the new machinery. Then there was the January "Roar before the 24" Test Days. There Team Sahlen worked hard at finding a set-up that would work for the entire 24 Hours. Finally came the practice and qualifying. At the pre-race practice and qualifying, Team Sahlen worked very hard to keep the track miles on the #43 Rotary to a minimum. This didn't mean that Team Sahlen took it exactly easy in Qualifying.
"We didn't put any special Qualifying set up on the Mazda for qualifying, but we did go out and try our best to get a very good time. I was fortunate to get a great draft off of the Joey Hand which assisted in propelling us to 14th on the Grid." - stated Wayne Nonnamaker
Come the start of the race on Saturday, the clouds rolled in and some of the hardest and coldest rain seen in recent years came pouring down. The rain made for very damp pre-race activities. The Band and Cheerleaders that entertained on the driver announcement stage got very soaked. The rain was coming down so hard that even Team Sahlen's Hot Dog Boy and Ketchup did not make their usual pre-race grid walk.
But making an appearance on the pre-grid at the race was the #42 Team Sahlen to be started by Joe Sahlen. Although Joe would eventually join the driver line-up of Joe, Wayne & Will Nonnamaker in the #43 entry, he would actually get his feet "wet" as the case may be by starting the sister Mazda entry.
"I always wanted to start the ROLEX 24 Hours and this was a great way to do it with little to no pressure. I had a lot of fun, and drove until the RX-8 was low on fuel then I pitted it and took the car straight back to the Garage." - Stated Joe Sahlen.
Even once the track dried off, the track temperatures did not rise. In fact the pit road stayed wet until at least 8 hours into the race. This made for very difficult driving on dry tires. Many cars slipped off the track, causing significant damage to their machinery. One car that did not face a significant off road excursions was the #43 RX-8. The little Rotary just kept going around and around the track. And hour by hour, Team Sahlen moved up the charts, both in GT and Overall.
Throughout the middle of the night, the drivers kept rotating through; Wayne Nonnamaker, Joe Nonnamaker, Will Nonnamaker, Joe Sahlen, and then repeat. Then come sunrise on Sunday Morning, and the #43 RX-8 found itself in the Top Ten. Then as morning turned to afternoon, Team Sahlen had crept up to 4th in GT. There a 3 hour battle ensued between 4th through 10th in GT, with all 7 cars with in mere laps of each other. The battle ensued, and Team Sahlen battled hard, finishing only 1 second behind the #40 Dempsey Racing RX-8. This finish netted 7th in GT and 14th Overall. This 14th in class was one position better than the team's previous best overall of 15th in 2004. The 7th place finish also marked the teams' 4th Top 10 finish in class in this historic twice around the clock adventure.
"It feels great to have such a good run in the 24 Hours. Everybody worked so hard to get to this point. After our 2009 event, everyone on the team was pretty down. To come back and have this result feels fantastic." - states Joe Nonnamaker
Round 2 of the Grand American ROLEX calendar will be the Homestead event to be held on March 6-7.
The 2010 Team Sahlen ROLEX & CONTINENTAL Tires Series Campaigns will be supported by Mazda, Mazdaspeed, HRPWorld.com, HAWK Performance, Cool Shirt, Racetech Seats, BBS, Alcon, Mothers Polish, EMCO, TheRaceSite.com, Grassroots Motorsports, Holliday Canopies, Alcon, CM Racing, Genesis Technologies, Endurance Karting, Castrol and SpeedSource Engineering.
