< Back to News Home Team Sahlen hopes to repeat last year's Overall ChampCar Victory at the Pittsburgh International Raceway Complex

Posted (10/04/2018) -

At last year’s ChampCar event at Pittsburgh International Race Complex, Team Sahlen was able to avenge for a disappointing near miss at victory in 2016 by securing the overall race victory. For 2018, Team Sahlen returns with high hopes of repeating as overall victors. 


At Team Sahlen’s most recent event with ChampCar at Watkins Glen International an Overall Victory was nearly secured.  In Saturday’s 7 hour endure, Team Sahlen was sitting in a very good position in the lead of the race with 1 hour to go, when a full course red flag came out and stopped the race.  The fortunate news is that no one was hurt in the incident.  The unfortunate news for Team Sahlen was that this shortening of the race length saw several teams able to stretch their fuel to the end of the race while the team’s rotary rocket had to pit for a fill up.  Despite this side step, Team Sahlen was able to roar back to take 3rd overall. 


Wayne Nonnamaker shared his thoughts on the Sahlen’s Champyard DOG at the Glen event – “What a near victory.  There wasn’t anything we could have done differently.  The crew did a fantastic job in their pit stops and we ran great laps all day. It’s just that sometimes it not your day,,,and this happened to be one of those races for us.”


Team has had 4 months off since they last competed in the ChampCar Endurance Series.  In that time, the team has worked to continue to make enhancements to their Rotary Rockets. 


Tony Artino – Team Sahlen Car Chief – Shared his thoughts – “The one area that we continue to work with our RX7s is to improve the reliability.  We worked diligently over the summer to refine several areas of the Mazda to continue to improve our chances to withstand the punishment that an 8 hour endurance race puts on a 30 year old car.”


The drivers for this weekend’s races will be Joe Sahlen, Joe Nonnamaker, Wayne Nonnamaker and Will Nonnamaker. Joe Sahlen shared his thoughts leading into the weekend – “The Pittsburgh track seems to really lend itself to the strong suits of our Mazda RX7s.  Our cars seem to really excel at handling and braking.  And these are two key characteristics of this track that lead to quick lap times.”


Friday will be open test time.  Then Saturday will be an 8 hour endurance event.  This will then be followed up by a 7 hour endurance event on Sunday.


 

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