Posted (04/17/2013) -
It has been quite awhile since Team Sahlen competed at Road Atlanta. You have to go all the way back to 1999 for the last time the team set foot on the rolling terrain of Road Atlanta. At the time, the team was competing in what is now the Continental Tire Challenge Series. The team was racing in the ST class in Mazda MX-6s and 626s. This event in 1999 marked the inaugural Petit LeMans weekend. It was an amazing race, with Will and Wayne Nonnamaker battling the Acura of Bob Endicott and Peter Schwartzott to win by a scant 2 seconds after 3 hours of racing. Also rounding out the podium was the team’s second entry of Dick Starita and John Wymore.
Flash forward 14 years, and Team Sahlen now finds themselves back at Road Atlanta, in the top Daytona Prototype class, fighting for the overall victory in Saturday’s ROLEX event.
So far this season, Team Sahlen has quietly put a string of consistent and ever improving finishes of 9th, 8th and 7th in the first 3 events. If this string continues, then look to see the Team Sahlen entry in 6th place at the end of the race.
Finishing driver Dane Cameron for the #42 is a California native but now calls the Atlanta area home. He will not have far to travel to race at Road Atlanta – “Road Atlanta will be awesome because I get to sleep in my own bed!! Another brand new track for Grand-Am this year so it will be a lot of fun to see how the DP performs. There are a few good passing zones but also the first part of the lap is very busy and really tough with traffic, I'm sure it will be a wild race.”
The other half of the “Wayne and Dane Show”, Wayne Nonnamaker, will come into the 4th Round event leading the Daytona Prototype “Jim Trueman” Sportsman Award Championship. If Wayne would be able to secure the Jim Trueman Award, he will be the 1st to win the Sportsman Award in both the Daytona Prototype and Grand Touring Class of the ROLEX Series – “It is still a long ways off before the end of the year, but it is certainly nice to be in the points lead instead of having to chase down my fellow Sportsman during the 2013 season.”
Team Sahlen will also be entering #43 “Ketchup” Daytona Prototype with Joe Nonnamaker and Will Nonnamaker driving. The duo had a trouble free event at Barber Motorsports Park just 2 weeks ago.
“It was great to just get out and have a fun, clean race at Barber. We didn’t have any dry practice time, so the race for us was one big test run. Now we have a test day at Road Atlanta, and hopefully the entire weekend is dry, so we can get some more seat time behind the wheel. These Daytona Prototypes are a blast to drive, and it should be really thrilling at such a classic road course as Road Atlanta.” – shared Joe Nonnamaker
The Road Atlanta event on April 20th will be a 2 hour and 45 Minute race and will be televised live at 4:40 pm est. on SPEED TV.
GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series is supported by:
BMW Motorsports, Dinan Engineering, Design Engineering Inc, Penske Shocks, EMCO Gears, Racing Print Media, Mothers Polish, TheRaceSite.com, PFC Brakes, Classic Motorsports Magazine, Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, BBS Wheels, and Hella Lights