< Back to News Home Team Sahlen secures memorable podium finish at Indy

Posted (07/27/2014) -

Team Sahlen entered the Indy weekend hoping to get back on their podium run.  Having never raced at Indy with the current ST car being campaigned, the team would be entering the weekend with a blank set up book.  Pace in practice was good, with an 8th and a 4th in class respectively in the 2 sessions.  Qualifying did not go so well, as Will Nonnamaker could only manage a 16th best slot. 

 

On down side to the early practice sessions occurred at the end of Practice Session 1, when Joe Nonnamaker in the #43 racer had a spin into the wall.  The damage to the car was minor, but unfortunately, Joe Nonnamaker legs got caught up in the pedals.  After a trip to the Hospital, it was revealed that he had a torn Achilles Tendon.  With Joe Sahlen not in attendance over this race weekend, Team Sahlen choose to park the #43, and focus solely on the #42 for the race.

 

Race day was a beautiful sunny day, with surprising temperatures in the low 80s.  After looking at prior years’ race results, it was observed that this race tended to have lots of yellows.  Therefore, Team Sahlen strategized based around this history.  Will Nonnamaker stayed out of trouble, and was moving up the pack, making his move on 12th place when the full course caution came out at the 30 minute mark.  The team brought Will in as soon the pits opened, did a full stop, including placing Wayne Nonnamaker behind the wheel.  As predicted, there were 2 immediate yellows that followed just after going green again.  Interestingly, these were very short yellows and were not long enough for teams to pit.  Therefore all of the competition in ST were forced into pitting under green flag conditions.  This played perfectly into Team Sahlen’s strategy. 

 

What happened next though is very interesting.  The last 1 hour and 20 minutes of the race went full green.  This meant that everyone last stop would be under green flag conditions.  With Team Sahlen having already completed their driver change and with less fuel to put in, their stop was considerably less time than most in the ST field.    This strategy played out well, as it rotated Wayne up to the lead pack of the ST class.  For the last 1 hour of the race, Wayne ran in the top 5 the entire time.  With 2 laps remaining, Wayne was in 4th place.  But then, the #23 car, in 3rd place ran out of fuel on the white flag lap.  Then on the last lap, the #04 broke a drivetrain part.  This catapulted Wayne to 2nd at the Checkered Flag.

 

Wayne summarized his race - “What an amazing race.  We had to battle the entire way.  I was racing cars in front of me, while at the same time dealing with charging cars behind us.   Even at one point, it started to sprinkle on track.  But we kept it going the entire race, and were able to secure a great 2nd place finish. Really proud of the crew for their excellent pit work and strategizing.  That is what placed us at the front so we could contend for the podium.”

 

The Indianapolis Brickyard Sports Car Challenge event will be tape delayed aired on FoxSports1 on August 3rd at 12 noon EDT.

 

The 2nd place finish moved Wayne 2 points closer in the championship hunt with Eric Foss.  With only 4 races remaining, each race becomes more and more important. 

 

The next event for Team Sahlen will be at Road America on August 9th at 12:15 pm EDT.  Team Sahlen will be back in full force with both the #42 and #43 machines entered for the race.

 

2014 Team Sahlen Campaign Partners:

Turbo Performance Center, Tarett Engineering, MOMO, Guard Transmission, Forgeline, Porsche of Beachwood, Pittsburgh International Race Complex, HubstandsPRO, MSI Racing Products, NGK Spark Plugs, TheRacingInsiders, CM Racing Products, Mothers Polishes, Winding Road Racing, Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, Maxima Oil, CV Products, Design Engineering Inc., Hella, Racing Print Media, Hard Brakes, CRC Chemicals, Penske Shocks, Alcon Rotors, Lamin-X, Optima Batteries and TheRaceSite.com.

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