Homestead: Beyer Racing race report

BEYER RACING COMPLETES FIRST GRAND-AM SEASON

Homestead, Florida - October 11th, 2009 - The Beyer Racing team completed its maiden season in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The Beyer squad of Jared Beyer and Mike Forest (#5 Lennox Chevrolet Crawford), and brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor (#13 Brach's Chevrolet Riley) took to the South Florida track under conditions of extreme heat and humidity which were only magnified inside their closed-cockpit Daytona Prototypes.

Jordan Taylor took the green flag in the 11th position and after a few laps started experiencing what would be a recurring problem throughout the race for both Beyer cars as his tires started to loose grip making it increasingly difficult to control his 500hp Brach's Daytona Prototype. After receiving new rubber on Lap 22 Taylor managed to pick up his pace considerably but was stuck behind slower traffic for the rest of his stint. On Lap 41 Ricky Taylor took over and after a strategy gamble found himself running in the third position by Lap 58. During a restart Taylor went neck to neck with defending champion Scott Pruett until the veteran ran wide and forced Taylor off the road causing him to loose considerable track position and eventually forcing him to pit to clean debris from his radiator. Despite de setback the 20 year old continued recovering positions and took the checkered flag in the ninth position.

For Mike Forest and the #5 car the beginning of what would be a long and difficult day came on Lap 3 when he had to avoid debris on the track by going wide and falling back from his 14th starting position. After running as high as ninth, Forest was bumped by the #6 car causing significant damage to his car which affected its aerodynamic efficiency for the rest of the race. Jared Beyer jumped in the car on Lap 46 while the crew made some temporary repairs to his machine which caused him to loose valuable time and track position and he found himself in the 17th position when he came back on to the track. For the duration of his stint Beyer concentrated on nursing his ill-handling damaged car to the end. Adding insult to injury he was bumped and spun during a restart on Lap 96 and then collected again by another car causing major damage to his Crawford chassis and forcing him to retire only four laps shy of the checkered flag.

The Beyer crew will focus over the next two days in repairing its damaged chassis as they prepare for an intensive testing program throughout the rest of the month in preparation for their 2010 season.

Jordan Taylor #13 Brach's Chevrolet Riley

The start was alright, I lost a couple of spots but then I got one right back. After that we had a lot of tire issues, we had to start on the qualifying tires and that made the Brach's car very difficult to drive, especially when putting the power down. Once we changed tires we managed to go almost two seconds faster and the car felt great. I was stuck behind some slower cars but although we were faster around most of the track they had better traction so it made it really difficult to come out of the corner and get alongside for the pass. When Ricky got in the car we had a really good shot with our strategy but then he got pushed off the track and lost some time there, also we were hoping for no cautions to make our strategy work but the yellow came out and that kept us from gaining more positions.

Ricky Taylor #13 Brach's Chevrolet Riley

"The Brach's car was up and down today, the race was very dependant on the tire conditions during the stint. I made a mistake during the middle stint when I went off while fighting with the Ganassi car which forced us to pit so we could clear all the grass and dirt from the radiator to stop the car from overheating. We managed to fight back and towards the end of the race we had one of the fastest cars on the track. I want to thank Brach's, Dex Imaging and Lennox for their support this weekend and throughout the entire year. Hopefully we can use what we have learned this year to have a solid season in 2010."

Mike Forest #5 Lennox Chevrolet Crawford

"The race was really stressful; it didn't go according to plan at all. The car was good on new tires but then a few laps into the stint the car was just really tough to drive, big understeer coming into the corner and big oversteer coming out. I had a few big moments, coming into Turn one I was passing a car but ended up going off so we lost some time there and just tried to use the yellows to get some positions back. After that in one of the restarts Valiente was passing me and I had the other Beyer car on the other side, he hit me down the straight which really upset the car coming into the braking zone so I couldn't get it slowed down and we ended up touching again and doing some damage to our car and that was basically the end of my stint."

Jared Beyer #5 Lennox Chevrolet Crawford

"The car was pretty hard to drive when I got in it especially in the banking where I had a huge understeer, it just wanted to push up towards the wall so you had to take it really easy through there.

On a restart everybody got bunched up in Turn 1 and I got nudged there a little bit then recovered and then going into Turn 2 I got hit again by one of the GT cars which spun me and then while I was in the middle of the track I got hit again which is what really did the damage. It's a shame because we really wanted to finish up the year with a strong result, but I know the Beyer crew will do a great job repairing the car and we'll be out testing in the next few days getting ready for next year."

-credit: br