GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Preparing for First-Ever IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Race
Just a day removed from driver Alex Gurney claiming the pole in the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance® Corvette Prototype, GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing’s focus changed to making final preparations for the 52nd Annual Rolex 24 At Daytona after final practice on Friday. Marking the inaugural event since the merger of GRAND-AM and ALMS, teams practiced for one final hour-long session today in preparation for the first race in the debuting IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
In completing the lone practice today, drivers Gurney, Jon Fogarty, Memo Gidley and Darren Law drove the No. 99 “Red Dragon” to the second quickest time of 1:39.568 (129.121 mph). Starting from the front row on Saturday, the team is now preparing for the day-long event, hoping to stay out of trouble early so they can contend for a win on Sunday.
“The engineering staff and drivers working together are pretty effective with the limited amount of testing we had leading up to qualifying,” Fogarty said. “We were pretty disciplined in our approach and came up with a fast car. It’s a good place to start, and we can dial it back for the race a bit. We need to play it smart and try to avoid the inevitable craziness that’s going to be going on out there. We want to be able to race at the end. We have a car that’s capable to win. If we can make it to the end clean, we are in good shape.”
Law is the only member of the four-driver tandem to win the endurance event, noting that his previous win in 2009 also came from the pole.
“We are more than ready for the big race,” Law said. “The car has been good all weekend long. Alex did a phenomenal job in qualifying by putting it on the pole. We’ve got a championship winning team and championship winning drivers that have won lots of races. I don’t see why we don’t stand a good chance of winning this thing. The big issue here is the race starts tomorrow around 2 p.m., but we don’t start fighting until mid-day Sunday. We’ve got to stay out of trouble. The car is fast enough. We just have to have a clean race in the beginning portion.”
The Rolex 24 At Daytona airs live beginning at 2 p.m. EST on FOX Sports, with two hours of green-flag coverage. At 4 p.m., coverage continues on sister station FOX Sports 2 until 9 p.m. For the overnight hours (9 p.m. to 7 a.m.), live images, in-car cameras and announcers will be streamed on www.IMSA.com. On Sunday, January 26, beginning at 7 a.m. FOX Sports 1 takes over the coverage and continues through the end of the race and post-race festivities, concluding at 3 p.m. Motor Racing Network (MRN) will air live flag-to-flag radio coverage, streaming live at www.MRN.com.
