STEVENSON MOTORSPORTS PACES CAMARO GT.Rs; BOTH TEAMS LED LAPS
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Jan. 30, 2011) – The hard-charging No. 10 SunTrust Racing Chevrolet Dallara finished in fifth place in the Rolex 24 at Daytona GRAND-AM Road Racing opener at Daytona International Speedway to lead the three Chevrolet-powered Daytona Prototype (DP) entrees in the field. The No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R finished 12th to pace the three Chevys in the GT field.
The No. 10 SunTrust Chevrolet Dallara – driven by Max Angelelli, Ryan Briscoe and Ricky Taylor – was involved in on-track contact, which caused damage to the right side of the car, nearly six hours into the race, and lost five laps while in the garage. The team regained four of those laps before returning to the garage to repair a broken suspension part, believed to have resulted from the earlier incident.
“The car is good, the Chevrolet engine is good and I am looking forward to the season,” said Taylor. “We know where the engine is now. We know we have a strong engine. All the variables we were worried about, we have answers to and I think they are all positive.”
The No. 10 SunTrust Chevrolet Dallara, which led for 36 laps in the early going, finished one lap off the pace.
The No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R – driven by Robin Liddell, Ronnie Bremer and Jan Magnussen – led its class for 23 laps, and then overcame problems to rally 20 positions from 32nd place.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed in having some electrical issues early on in the race when we were leading,” said team owner John Stevenson. “It got us down over an hour, so 25 laps are hard to overcome, but we came from 32nd to 12th, so we pushed as hard as we could to get as many points as we could. Now we’ll move on. We’ve got the whole rest of the season to go.”
Chevrolet announced its partnership with GRAND-AM Road Racing and team lineup last week.
“For this year’s 24 Hours of Daytona race, we debuted new engine configurations in both the Daytona Prototype and GT classes,” said Mark Kent, GM Racing Director. “These new engines are based on our LS-series of small block V8 engines and contain a significant number of production components. The 24 Hour of Daytona race is the most demanding road race held in North America. Therefore, to introduce these new engine configurations at this grueling event and to not have a single engine related failure is a great demonstration of the performance and reliability attributes of our small block V8 engine.”
Other Team Chevy finishers: In DP, No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Chevrolet Riley, 12th in class and 15th overall; and No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Chevrolet Coyote, 14th/ 23rd. In GT, No. 88 Autohaus Motorsports Camaro GT.R, 14th/28th; and No. 07 Banner Racing Camaro GT.R, 23rd/39th.
Note: Team Chevy press releases, high-resolution images, and media kit can be downloaded from the Team Chevy media website:
About Chevrolet: Founded in Detroit in 1911, Chevrolet celebrates its centennial as a global automotive brand with annual sales of about 4.25 million vehicles in more than 140 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. The Chevrolet portfolio includes iconic performance cars such as Corvette and Camaro; dependable, long-lasting pickups and SUVs such as Silverado and Suburban; and award-winning passenger cars and crossovers such as Spark, Cruze, Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including Cruze Eco and Volt. Cruze Eco offers 42 mpg highway while Volt offers 35 miles of electric, gasoline-free driving and an additional 344 miles of extended range. Most new Chevrolet models offer OnStar safety, security and convenience technologies including OnStar Hands-Free Calling, Automatic Crash Response and Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. More information regarding Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
