GAINSCO Captures Record $20,000 Pirelli Bonus at NJMP
July 20, 2010
Winning record $20,000 Pirelli P Zero Club bonus gave Jon Fogarty (left) and Alex Gurney an extra reason to celebrate at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
MILLVILLE, N.J. – In addition to enduring extreme heat in Sunday’s NJMP 250 presented by Crown Royal at New Jersey Motorsports Park, Pirelli sweetened the pot for race winners Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty, who earned a record $20,000 Pirelli P Zero Club payout for their first victory of the season.
Gurney and Fogarty stretched the performance of their Pirelli P Zeros in the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet Riley and claim the Pirelli P Zero Club Daytona Prototype “triple bonus” that went along with it.
In the GT division, SpeedSource scored an incredible top-three podium sweep with its potent trio of Mazda RX-8s that was led by the winning No. 70 Castrol Syntec car of Sylvain Tremblay and Jonathan Bomarito. Since it was the second victory of the campaign for Tremblay and Bomarito – who won the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona – the GT bonus rolls over to $30,000 for the Crown Royal 200 on August 7 at Watkins Glen International.
“We did more miles on our first set of Pirellis than anybody else today,” said Fogarty, who drove over 90 minutes in his opening stint on a single set of tires. “We did 165 miles on the Pirellis and we were still running there at the end. We really took the Pirellis to the limit and they held in there. It is a tough, demanding place and the Pirellis worked.”
The winning GAINSCO Daytona Prototype led the No. 01 TELMEX/Chip Ganassi Racing BMW Riley of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas across the finish line by 3.674 seconds. It was the first time in three races, and just the third time this season, that the No. 01 didn’t win a race. However, the Ganassi group continues to lead the GRAND-AM Rolex Series Daytona Prototype Team and Driver Championships by 19 points.
In GT, Tremblay and Bomarito led teammates John Edwards and Adam Christodoulou, in the No. 68 Mazdaspeed Motorsports Development Mazda RX-8, across the line by .170 of a second. Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato finished third in the No. 69 FXDD Mazda RX-8 and now lead Tremblay by only eight points in the GT championship, 262-254.
“The Pirellis performed really well today,” Segal said. “The weather was obviously a lot hotter than it is at most other races, which really taxes the tires. It might not be the most demanding track for the tire, but definitely the weather put them to the test and our Pirellis worked really well. We definitely made some big changes this weekend to accommodate the track and give the tires what they wanted, and in the race it worked perfectly.”
As a repeat race winner this season, the victory by the No. 70 Mazda team may make Sunday’s record $20,000 P Zero Club payout in New Jersey a short-lived record. A five-race rollover bonus of $30,000 will be up for grabs for any eligible first time 2010 GT winners in the next race at Watkins Glen in August.
The Pirelli P Zero Club is comprised of returning teams that finished inside the top 10 in the final 2009 GRAND-AM Rolex Series Daytona Prototype and GT points standings. When one of those teams in either class scores its first victory of the 2010 season they will also earn a $5,000 Pirelli P Zero Bonus. Any repeat wins in the remainder of the season, or victories by non-eligible teams, will see that race’s $5,000 bonus “roll over” and continue to build at each race until other P Zero Club members score their first 2010 victories. For the season finale at Miller Motorsports Park, September 11, all members of the P Zero Club will again be eligible for the bonus, regardless of whether or not they have won earlier in the season.
Next up for Pirelli and the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series is the Crown Royal 200 at The Glen, August 6 – 7, on the NASCAR short course at Watkins Glen International Raceway. The two-hour timed race can be seen live on SPEED Saturday, August 7th at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT.
Pirelli Tire North America designs, develops, manufactures and markets tires for passenger vehicles in both the original equipment and replacement markets as well as markets and distributes tires for motorcycles and motorsports. Located in Rome, Georgia, Pirelli’s Modular Integrated Robotized System (MIRS) employs state-of-the-art technology to manufacture tires for both export and domestic markets. For more information please visit www.us.pirelli.com.
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