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Montreal: Team Sahlen race report

Team Sahlen has strong Top 10 cut short at Montreal Team Sahlen was headed for their 4th Top 10 in 3 weekends until an unfortunate incident with a lapped GT car pushed the ...

Team Sahlen has strong Top 10 cut short at Montreal

Team Sahlen was headed for their 4th Top 10 in 3 weekends until an unfortunate incident with a lapped GT car pushed the #42 Corvette back to 13th place.

The weekend started off with clear skies and a green race track on Thursday. Team Sahlen took their time working through the fresh track, traffic and car sorting issues.

"As to be expected for a street course, the Montreal track was very slippery at the start of the weekend. We had a brake issue on #42 that had been a problem since Barber. The crew did a fantastic job sorting out the problem, and by the afternoon, we had a solid car. Unfortunately, this is also when the downpour came, putting a halt to any serious on track activity." - stated Wayne Nonnamaker

For Qualifying, Joe & Will Nonnamaker received their first serious laps around the race track. Despite this lack of track time, Will easily placed the #42 Corvette in 13th slot out of 20 in GT.

"I was getting used to the track every lap. Just as I was getting up to speed, I caught two slower GT qualifiers that took two of our laps out. Nevertheless, 13th is a good spot to start from for the race after Thursday's track time loss." - stated Will Nonnamaker

Less than 2 hours after Qualifying, the ROLEX race was scheduled to start. That did not leave much time for the Team Sahlen crew to prepare the Corvettes for the race. This was especially true with the 1.5 mile distance between the pits and the paddock. The team choose to work on the Corvettes in the pits, instead of taking the cars back to the trailer.

At the start of the race, Will Nonnamaker weaved his way through the traffic, and set into a comfortable pace in 9th place.

"I was behind two team cars that seemed to be racing each other and me pretty hard, ziz zagging on the straights to block me and diving each other in the turns. I choose to sit tight and see how the race unfolded. Fortunately, a yellow came out on the 44th minute, allowing us to pit and put Wayne in on the lead lap." - stated Will Nonnamaker

Wayne quickly jumped into the #42 racer and was charging hard. He raced hard with Ron Fellows and was able to pass him for position. A lap after passing Fellows, Wayne was punted from behind by a GT racer who was a lap down. Although this did take out the team's chances for a Top 10, it did not stop Team Sahlen from pushing on.

Wayne battled on to finish in 13th place. And Will Nonnamaker completed the double by finishing the #43 for his father Joe and placing it in 15th position.

"We are excited about the upcoming New Jersey track. There are 4 weeks off and this will give us time to test and develop the Corvettes some more to take on the competition in GT." - states crew chief Mike Thomas

-credit: ts

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