Brumos Race Report

As Brumos Racing headed to Barber Motorsports Park for Round 3 of the GRAND-AM Rolex Series season, they carried the momentum of their Homestead pole position and near-win with them. The change in the Rolex Series schedule delivered picture-perfect Alabama springtime weather, but the track itself proved as challenging as ever. The race weekend was shared with the Indy Car Series, resulting in limited track time with only two practice sessions on the schedule. It also added to tire buildup on the track which made handling more of a challenge. Difficulties in finding a workable setup were evidenced in qualifying, as Darren Law reported having little grip, ending the session with #59 in 8^th place on the starting grid.

As the green flag dropped, Law advanced quickly through the field, working his way up to 5^th in the opening laps. The first yellow flag occurred before Law had completed his required thirty minutes in the car for points, so no driver change was made at that time.  The second full course caution only a few laps later brought #59 in and David Donohue took over to complete an extended finishing stint. Donohue was running a strong pace and was as high as 2^nd when contact from a GT car bumped him off the track with a resulting loss of position. Forced back to 7^th, he worked hard to regain the lost ground. Shown briefly in the lead during the round of pit stops in the third and final caution of the race, he held on to finish in 5^th place. That finish enabled the Brumos team to hold on to their 3^rd place position in the team standings, with only three points separating them from 2^nd place.

After dealing with the setbacks of the day, Darren Law was satisfied to settle with a top five, saying, “It is not exactly what we wanted to see after having such a strong run at Homestead, but 5^th place is reasonable, and we still earned some decent points for the day.  I don’t wish bad luck on any team, but we were fortunate that some of the teams we were in close competition with in the standings fell out of the race early.  That helped us hold onto our position, but overall, we had a pretty tough weekend and were just never really on pace.  I think David and I and the entire Brumos team managed to salvage a good finish despite the obstacles.”

David Donohue had his own obstacles to overcome, dealing with the heat for an extended stint and trying to regain position on a track that makes passing very difficult. “We had a less than perfect car, obviously”, he said. “Darren was able to put it on the pole at Homestead, and judging from qualifying here, we really struggled. We have a great group of guys working on it, but with such limited track time we just missed it here and will have some work cut out for us before VIR.  We were able to fight our way up to 2^nd for a bit but I am not sure how long we would have been able to hold it.  Towards the end of the race we just couldn’t get the car to turn, but the 5^th place finish was a good save for the Brumos team. Now we just have to turn our focus onto finding a way to improve for VIR.”

Following a short break, the Rolex Series heads to Virginia International Raceway for Round 4 of the 2010 season.  That race will be held on Saturday, April 24^th beginning at 12:00 PM and is scheduled for live broadcast on SPEED TV.