Daytona 24: TRG Porsche Friday report

TRG Porsches Qualify 18th, 19th, 23rd and 27th for 24 at Daytona

Daytona Beach, Florida m- TRG's four Porsches qualified in 18th, 19th, 23rd and 28th for the 44th running of the Grand American Rolex Series Presented by Crown Royal Reserve Rolex 24 at Daytona to start at noon tomorrow.J

Stepane Ortelli qualified the number 66 Comfort Systems/TRG/Porsche 997 in 19th place on the GT grid with a time of 1:57.474. The 66 team has suffered a litany of damage to the car this weekend, but the TRG crew was able to get the car repaired and on the grid for qualifying this morning. "We have had a lot of problems so far this weekend," said Ortelli. "I made a couple of mistakes and it has cost us valuable track time. We have a much better car than we qualified, so I am looking forward to the race."

#66 TRG Porsche 997
Steve Johnson
Robert Nearn
Cyrille Sauvage
Stephane Ortelli

The number 67 TRG Porsche was qualified by Pat Flanagan in 27th in GT with a time of 1:59.753. "I had some entry oversteer going into turns five and six. Maybe it was because I was pushing a little more than before. I adjusted on the front bar and it helped. We will need to stay clean in the race, stay out of the pits and run our pace, hopefully that will net us a good finish."

#67 Porsche 997
Marc Bullock
Bohdan Kroczek
Bill Keith
Pat Flanagan
Dave Master -- posthumously

Jim Pace was the highest qualified TRG Porsche driver with a time of 1:57.440, good for a 18th place grid position. "We wanted to post our qualifying time yesterday. That gave our crew a lot of time to prep the car and get all of the race parts on it without having to be in a big rush. We will go out this afternoon and bed in the brakes and rotors, put her to bed and come out ready to race tomorrow."

#68 Porsche 996
Jim Pace
Jim Lowe
Revere Greist

The number 69 team will start in 23rd tomorrow on the strength of Josh Vargo's qualifying effort. "We made a spring change before qualifying and that really settled the rear of the car down. We had some oversteer and it just wasn't going to be comfortable for 24 hours. I think I left about a half-second out there in qualifying, but we have a satisfying starting position and we are really looking forward to having a good race."

#69 Porsche 996
Josh Vargo
Jake Vargo
Mark Herrington
Brady Refenning

"The Porsche guys are doing a good job this weekend," said Kevin Buckler. "Our guys in the number 66 car has a tough couple of days, but I hope that all of that is behind us and they will show the speed in the race that we know is in that car. We have a lot of confidence in our Porsche program and we will be well prepared for the race."

-trg-