Brix
and Jourdain Almost Finish in the Top 10
In Saturday's Sonoma 250 at Infineon Raceway
SONOMA, Calif., Aug. 26 - If Saturday's Sonoma
250 at Infineon Raceway would
have been just four laps shorter or there
would have been just a few more
caution-flag laps, the Feeds the Need/Doran
Racing DORAN JE4 Ford No. 77 would
have finished eighth, but in the end drivers
Harrison Brix and Michel Jourdain
Jr. ended up 16th both in the Daytona Prototype
class and overall in the 39-car
field.
Brix, of San Jose, Calif., qualified 18th
in the car, which carries the
colors of the Kodak EasyShare System, Amp'd
Mobile and SIRIUS. He actually started
17th, however, when one car started on pit
lane due to a pre-race engine
change. He passed two cars immediately and
settled into a nice pace, running
between Patrick Carpentier and Rob Finlay.
He ran in 15th or 16th for the first 20
laps until there was some attrition and he
moved up to 14th. He was in that
spot when the team made its first pit stop
under a full-course yellow on lap 24
of what turned out to be a 99-lap event that
ended at its
two-hour-and-45-minute time limit.
The Doran Racing pit crew did a fantastic
job and the team advanced to tenth
after the pit stop. Brix ran in tenth, 11th
or 12th the rest of his stint,
pitting under yellow on lap 40 for four fresh
Hoosiers, fuel, and for Jourdain,
of Mexico City, Mexico, to take over.
Jourdain was in 14th for the restart on lap
43 and he ran in 15th or 16th
thereafter. A little past the half-way point
he had a nice battle with Shane
Lewis and Carpentier even though the set
of tires he had wasn't as good as he'd
hoped. Both drivers said the track
was slippery throughout the race, primarily
due to the other tire compounds used by the
other series that shared the
2.52-mile circuit here this weekend.
Jourdain was 17th on lap 63 and the team
was already working hard to conserve
both its tires and its fuel. Some of
the cars ahead of him pitted a little
later and a couple crashed to move Jourdain
up to 13th on lap 69, sandwiched
between Carpentier and Christian Fittipaldi.
Oswaldo Negri spun, the Ruby Tuesday car
caught on fire in the pits, and the
Doran Racing team's excellent fuel strategy
caused Jourdain to rise to seventh
by lap 73. At that point the efforts to conserve
fuel became paramount,
although with 17 laps remaining team owner
Kevin Doran already had correctly
estimated that the car would be about four
or five laps short of going the entire
distance on the fuel that remained.
Michael Valiante got around Jourdain on lap
84 and Fittipaldi passed him on
lap 86 to move him to ninth, but
the team was back in eighth on lap 89 when
Carpentier pitted. At that point Jourdain
had his biggest scare when Andrew
Davis ran into the rear of the No.
77 and crashed into a tire wall in Turn 10
on
lap 90. Jourdain was able to continue on,
doing his best to conserve as much
fuel as possible under the subsequent yellow
flag.
He was still in eighth when he finally had
to pit on lap 95 for fuel only
just as the race restarted, and he ended
up 16th at the checkered four laps later.
Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz ended up winning
the race, which supported
Sunday's Indy Racing League IndyCar headliner.
It will be broadcast on SPEED at 3
p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, Aug. 27.
The next Rolex Series race is coming right
up next weekend at Miller
Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, near Salt
Lake City.
For more information see doranracing.com
and grandamerican.com.
Driver quotes follow:
Harrison Brix: "I had a close call when the
No. 8 spun in front of me. Then
the No. 39 nearly ran me into the grass once.
"The track was incredibly slippery.
"The car performed pretty well. Michel did
an awesome job and the crew did an
awesome job. The pit stops were incredible. It's
not often that you pit and
gain three or four spots. They made
my life a lot easier today."
Michel Jourdain Jr.: "I was next to him [Andrew
Davis] for a long time; he
had to see me. I don't understand why
he just turned into me like I wasn't
there. We hit pretty hard in my left
rear. I don't think that it hurt our
wheel
though.
"I didn't have any other contact. We
took a conservative approach the whole
race. We needed to finish this race
and get as many points as possible for
Kevin. We almost had a top-10." |