at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca‏

GTSport Racing/Napleton Porsche Team Continues Early-Season Competitive Pace for Hot Wheels®, InvoicePrep, Voodoo Ride and StopTech with Second Podium of the YearJack Baldwin and Team Hot Wheels™ finished second in Friday’s Pirelli World Challenge race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, continuing a strong season-opening streak of four top-five finishes in the year’s first five races in the No. 68 Hot Wheels®/GTSport Racing/Napleton Porsche Cayman S.For the third consecutive race, Baldwin launched from his outside front-row standing start position to take the early race lead from pole-winner Peter Cunningham.  Baldwin led the first two laps of the timed 50-minute sprint and battled for the victory even after Cunningham slipped by for the lead on lap three.“I took off like a jackrabbit at the start and it was like ‘Wow, we did it again,’ had another great start,” Baldwin said. “It was kind of cool, and I think I am getting good at the standing starts.  I didn’t like them at first but now I have it down, it’s kind of cool, and the Cayman just launches from the line.”Baldwin stayed with Cunningham’s Acura for the remainder of the race, running a close second, but never really had a shot at retaking the lead.“We just didn’t have enough for Peter,” Baldwin said. “We didn’t have enough for that Acura today.  He was a little better than we were and he never really gave me a shot to get by him.  We had a little bit of bumping action at the top of the hill there but we raced hard, we raced clean, and he earned it.”Baldwin’s runner-up placing completed a strong season-opening run for the new Team Hot Wheels™ program, highlighted by a victory last month on the streets of Long Beach and fourth-place two weeks ago at Miller Motorsports Park.  It also included fifth and seventh place finishes in the season-opening doubleheader at St. Petersburg in March.“We are leaving Laguna with our heads held high and proud to have competed at that level,” Baldwin said. “It has really been a great start to the season and I have to thank all of our partners at GTSport Racing who have believed in this program from the start. Wayne Nykyforchyn from InvoicePrep, Eric Ostermeire of Voodoo Ride and Jeff Urbina from Jamestown Fish Restaurant joined with me in establishing GTSport Racing.  We are having a great time, working hard but having fun, and look forward to even more success.”The No. 68 Team Hot Wheels™ Porsche is based on the popular Pirelli Cayman Interseries Caymans with modifications to meet Pirelli World Challenge GTS specifications. The World Challenge Cayman S, like all of the cars that race in the Interseries, was built by Porsche Napleton Racing (PNR), the competition and high-performance division of leading Chicago-area dealership Napleton Porsche of Westmont. In addition to owning and running the Pirelli Cayman Interseries, which has been in operation since 2009, the PNR personnel on the GTSport Racing/Team Hot Wheels™ program are among the best in the motorsports business.“I really want to thank our awesome crew of Isaac Fritsche, Marc Gomora and Jeff Parsons,” Baldwin said. “I also have to acknowledge the great direction and engineering we receive from Steve Ruiz at Stop Tech, one of the reasons the Team Hot Wheels™ Cayman runs as fast as it does.”The Team Hot Wheels™ Cayman was prepped at Stop Tech’s shop in Carson, Calif., in between the Miller and Mazda Raceway events.“After Miller we took the Team Hot Wheels Cayman back to the Stop Tech race shop in where it was very well prepared for battle in Round 5,” Baldwin said.  “One of our biggest assets is our Stop Tech brakes which allow me to take the Cayman very deep into the braking zone with the confidence.  We came to Laguna very focused and on somewhat of a mission to do better after our fourth-place finish at Miller and it worked.”The Laguna finish moved Baldwin to second from third in the Pirelli World Challenge GTS championship standings with 552 points, trailing only Cunningham’s leading tally of 602 points.The No. 68 Team Hot Wheels/GTSport/Porsche Napleton Racing Cayman S is also supported by Napleton Porsche Motorsports, BBS, Jamestown Fish Restaurant, RaceLink, SPEEDCOM Communications, TPC, AIM, RS683 and Schnorr Art.