Brumos Race Report

With one-third of the 2010 season now in the record books, Brumos Racing has seen their consistency pay off.  Narrowly missing the podium in front of this year’s record crowd at VIR, their 4^th place finish marked their third consecutive top five and boosted the Brumos #59 to 2^nd place in the GRAND-AM Rolex Series Team Point standings.

Overcoming some difficulties with the car in pre-race practice sessions and qualifying, the team’s hard work yielded results as they were able to end the day with what David Donohue termed ‘a reasonable result.’ Starting driver Darren Law began the race from 8^th position on the grid, but gained ground steadily. Strategy kept him in the car as it pitted under green for the mandatory 45 minute pit stop and put him back on track quickly, gaining positions in the process. He held onto 3^rd place for much of his extended stint and turned in a strong performance, at times running faster laps than the leaders. Things were looking good for another podium finish as David Donohue took over under a full course caution, but a miscue on the restart was costly, affecting the #59 as well as several other cars in the field.  With little time left to regain ground, Donohue held on to bring the #59 home in 4^th.

Donohue was satisfied with the day’s finish, saying, “We really like to roll off the truck fast and go for the win, but I think the top three cars were really in a class of their own out there.  I could stay close to them but I don’t think we had anything for them to be able to really compete if we were in the mix.  That restart really left a lot to be desired -  I don’t know exactly what was going on in front of me but it cost a lot of teams, including  the #9 Action Express car and the car that hit me – it was really a shame.  But Brumos doesn’t give up, we will continue to persevere and work hard to figure out what we have been missing. Our goal is to run up front for the rest of the year.”

Darren Law acknowledged the hard work of his team, saying “I’m really proud of how we ended up on our run, the guys worked so hard and we never gave up. We had a really rough start for the weekend and qualified poorly.  The car was just not handling that well, but by race time it was much improved. We had tuned it and got it pretty close, and I think leaving me in after our first stop turned out to be a good strategy call.  I was able to bring it in to David in 3^rd and he continued to keep it near the front and stayed competitive.  We really hoped to do well here and make it to the podium, especially since this is the 3^rd anniversary of the day we lost Bob Snodgrass – we really wanted to do him proud. But we were able to earn some good points and now we are looking ahead to Lime Rock”

Following the VIR race, the team will travel to Lime Rock for some testing in preparation for Round 5 of their season, which will mark the first visit to the historic Connecticut track by the Rolex Series.  That Memorial Day race will be held on May 31^st , 2010.