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Fontana: Synergy Racing Friday report

Synergy Racing Quick During Practice at California Speedway FONTANA, Calif. (April 1, 2005) -- Synergy Racing opened practice for the Ferrari Maserati 400 at California Speedway on Friday with some impressive lap times. Leading the charge was the ...

Synergy Racing Quick During Practice at California Speedway

FONTANA, Calif. (April 1, 2005) -- Synergy Racing opened practice for the Ferrari Maserati 400 at California Speedway on Friday with some impressive lap times. Leading the charge was the Rx.com No. 8 BMW Doran JE4 of Burt and Brian Frisselle. The brothers clocked the third-quickest lap time during the final practice of the day, turning a 1:35.079 lap at 106.774 mph around the 2.82-mile track.

"The brakes were so much better in the second session, and that was the main difference from the morning for us today," said Burt. "The BMW is giving us good speed coming out of the slower corners, and the car is well balanced, so we are pretty happy with the way the day went."

Synergy Racing's GT entries also made progress during the day of practice. David Murry turned in the best time in the No. 81 Porsche GT3 Cup sponsored by pipeservicestt.com and autobysite.com. The Atlanta-resident recorded a 1:44.202 lap at 97.426 mph, the ninth quickest in class during the morning session.

"We've got the No. 81 car running pretty well," said Murry, who will pilot both the No. 81 and No. 80 Porsches during Sunday's 400-kilometer race. "The No. 80 is not responding as well, though. The things that are working on the No. 81 seem to be having the opposite effect on the No. 80 for some reason. That's something we are going to talk through in our debrief, so we can get it figured out for tomorrow."

"Things are going pretty good," said Houston, Texas' Mae Van Wijk, Murry's co-driver in the No. 81 Porsche. "It keeps getting better and better for me. I'm still working on getting comfortable with the track. I ran all of the afternoon session to help with that. As I'm growing more comfortable, I'll probably step it up bit tomorrow."

Synergy Racing's No. 80 Porsche, piloted by Murry and Long Beach-resident Craig Stanton, was able to pick up some speed during the day. After running 15th in class in the opening practice session, the No. 80 machine picked up two tenths of a second to move into 12th quickest during the final session with a 1:45.155 lap at 96.543 mph.

Synergy Racing will also field the No. 81 Porsche 997 in Saturday's Grand-Am Cup Series race, and drivers Brent Martini and Kelly Collins, both from Orange County, were happy with the improvements they saw to their race car on Friday.

"The guys have finally had a chance to do a lot of the little things we didn't have a chance to work on because of all of the electrical problems we had at the first two races," explained Laguna Beach's Martini, who gave the 997 its racing debut at Daytona earlier this season. "We are finally able to work on the fundamentals of the car.

"Plus, being 100 pounds lighter helps, because we are so far down on horsepower compared to the other GS cars," Martini commented on Grand American's recent rules change for the Porsche 997. "I'm encouraged and feel we are heading in the right direction. Grand American has begun to address the inequities in the car, but we are still a long way from a podium finish."

Martini, who has experienced victory at California Speedway in the past, echoed his comment from earlier in the week that he would be extremely happy with a top-10 finish in Saturday's Grand American 200 and a top five would fell like a victory.

Qualifying for both the Rolex Sports Car Series and Grand-Am Cup will take place on Saturday, with the 200-mile, 71-lap Grand-Am Cup race getting underway at 2:45 p.m. PST. The green flag will fall on the Ferrari Maserati 400 featuring the Rolex Series on Sunday at 1 p.m. PDT. The Rolex Series race will be aired live on SPEED Channel.

-sr-

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