Rolex - 3rd place in Watkins Glen PDF Print E-mail
Written by Dempsey Racing   
Wednesday, 09 June 2010 11:24
Another Podium For Dempsey Racing As Team’s Mazda RX-8 GTs Finish Third and Seventh In Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen

Second-Straight Podium for No. 41 Mazda RX-8 GT; Solid Seventh for No. 40 Mazda RX-8 GT

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (June 6, 2010) – Dempsey Racing’s Mazda RX-8 GTs each overcame setbacks in Saturday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen for the Dempsey squad’s best total-team performance in three months, including the second top-three podium finish in five days for James Gué and Leh Keen No. 41 Team Seattle/Global Diving/Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8 GT.

The No. 41 recovered from a pit stop miscommunication to finish third while Joe Foster and Charles Espenlaub charged back from an early spin in the rain to finish a solid seventh in the No. 40 Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8 GT. The finishes match the results from early March’s Grand Prix of Miami, which was the site of Dempsey’s previous top team performance earlier this season.

The No. 41’s Miami result was the first podium finish for the Dempsey Racing team and Gué and Keen have since moved into GT championship contention at the halfway point of the 2010 season. The team has made it to victory lane in half of the season’s first six races and a win even seemed likely in the Watkins Glen race. The No. 41 was up front for a class-leading 49 laps but the car dropped back to sixth after the pit stop error near the end of the race. Keen then staged a dramatic charge through the field and pressured the second-place No. 70 Castrol Syntec/SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 GT of Jonathan Bomarito to the finish.

“We are a little bit disappointed but at the end of the day the whole team, with where we have come from, what we have been doing and how we have been improving each race, should be pleased with a podium,” Gué said. “Leh did a phenomenal job at the end there to pull us out of a little bit of a hole. Every time we hit the track we learn new lessons and I certainly wouldn’t place the blame on anyone in particular for the pit miscue. As they say, we win as a team and we lose as a team, but you can’t second guess yourself in these races. We committed to a strategy, stuck with it and sill managed to get another podium.”
Keen led a race-high 40 laps while Gué was up front for 9 circuits.

“As far as the Rolex Series goes, I am really pumped up,” said Keen, who leaves Monday to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “We really, really got it going now with two podiums in a row. We were so strong at The Glen and we are halfway through the season now and we are figuring all of this stuff out still, but we have figured out a lot so far. We were right up front the whole time, pretty much, but I had the car up underneath me to claw back on to the podium. I have to thank the Dempsey guys for doing such a great job and James was awesome in his last stint there, he just killed it. I am happy, I will take a podium any day, and we will win a race.”

The No. 41 Mazda team also finished a Dempsey Racing career-best second this past Memorial Day Monday at Lime Rock Park. The No. 40 Mazda of Foster and Espenlaub in turn had its best finish in the last four races at The Glen with the seventh-place result. Foster joined his regular teammate and Dempsey Racing business partner Patrick Dempsey in finishing seventh for the first time this season in Miami and duplicated that result with Espenlaub this past weekend.

“Perseverance was the key and the Dempsey guys did a great job,” Espenlaub said. “Our pit stops were absolutely flawless and the team is really coming along with that. We made up a lot of time early after going a lap down and just tried to dig back from there.”

Although the No. 40 could never work its way back on to the lead lap after the early spin, the team’s second seventh-place showing of the season ranks behind only a sixth in the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona as the best result of the year.

“We did have a reasonably good car today but I threw it off in the rain early,” Foster said. “That didn’t help but I got back on and we sort of watched the rest of the race unfold from a lap down. Both Charles and I stayed in the lead pack, but just a lap down. It was good but frustrating at the same time. We have got a little more pace out of the car, which is good, but we had some bad luck in the wet, which happened to a bunch of cars. I made a mistake, which happens, but I haven’t done that in a long time.”

Next up for the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series and Dempsey Racing is the EMCO Gear Classic at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, June 18 - 19. The race can be seen live on SPEED on Saturday, June 19, at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 June 2010 14:36 )