Rain Soaked Mid Ohio Event Sees Law and Donohue Score Spectacular 2nd Place Finish
After David Donohue scored his third pole position of the 2008 Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No 16, in the #58 Brumos Porsche Riley Daytona Prototype, Darren Law turned in a spectacular drive in treacherous conditions to score the duo’s second runner up finish in consecutive races. Law of Phoenix, Arizona and Donohue of Malvern, Pennsylvania survived much of the rain caused mayhem in the EMCO Gears Classic at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course that saw some eight full course caution periods for 35 laps.
Law, who found himself in 9th place with some 15 minutes left to go in the scheduled two hour 45-minute race, used the handling of the #58 Brumos Riley package to slice through the field and even passed the second placed BMW Riley of Matt Plumb on what would turn out to be the last lap of green flag racing. A two car pile up on the front straight forced the event to end under caution, although Law was making substantial gains on the eventual race winning #99 Gainsco Bob Stallings Pontiac Riley of Alex Gurney.
The #58 Brumos Porsche entry started the weekend strongly, by setting fourth quick time in the practice session. The team then placed a fresh Porsche engine in the Riley chassis, and Donohue turned a lap of 1:17.883 in dry conditions to score his third pole position this year.
Donohue took the start of the race in the dry amidst a field of 19 Daytona Prototypes and 22 GT class machines. Seven laps into the event the rain showers began, and although drier conditions would ensue near the end of the race, the track was wet throughout the event. Donohue drove a clean stint despite the defogger unit on the windshield malfunctioning, and turned the car over to Law during a full course caution on lap 31.
Law's first laps in the Brumos as he left pit lane in 14th position proved to be challenging, as the difficult conditions saw a lack of grip that seemed to especially affect the stiffly sprung Daytona Prototype machines. Although abundant full course yellow periods kept the gap to the lead cars close, many of the GT cars were able to outpace the traditionally faster DP cars, especially when conditions were at their worst.
Although Law kept the #58 entry clean, he didn’t stay completely out of trouble having slid off track at one point and almost getting stuck in the gravel. After avoiding the problems that took out many cars, the conditions changed late in the race, and Law took full advantage of the slowly drying track. Over the last 20 minutes of the event, Darren was able to run several seconds a lap faster than many of the DP cars, and made some dramatic passes through traffic to finally take a well earned 2nd place finish.
Quote
Darren Law - Driver #58 Brumos Porsche Riley
That was about as close as it gets! I really wanted that #99 car (race winner Alex Gurney Pontiac Riley). We had the speed to catch him, and I think we could have gotten by, but that late full course yellow kind of ended it a bit early for us. That was a race of survival. At one point about mid race I was pretty upset because I had locked up and slid into the grass, but I was able to get going again. I kept thinking it was going to be a really long afternoon. Then things changed, and the car was hooked up there later in the race as the conditions began to get better. We struggled a bit in the wet, but as the track dried, I just put my head down and was pushing hard to make up positions. We almost got there. We just ran out of time. – we’ll get ‘em though, I really think its just a matter of time!
Up Next / Info
Darren and the rest of the Brumos crew barley have time to rest as they will test at the Mid Ohio circuit on Monday and well then head out for the Brumos 250 at Daytona International Speedway to be held July 3rd. Darren will then travel up the coast again to Lime Rock Park for the Northeast Grand Prix American Le Mans Series race where he will team up with the back from Le Mans Flying Lizard Motorsports team and their Porsche GT3 RSRs.
