SCC: Millville: Hopwood, Burrows Friday notes

Hopwood and Burrows Suffer Slow Start in New Jersey

Millville, NJ (29 August, 2008)--Fans of the No. 76 Fischer Skis Compass360 Racing Acura TSX could hardly be blamed for wondering where the defending KONI Challenge champions were when they were looking at the practice time sheets after a motor problem robbed Adam Burrows and Trevor Hopwood of any track time at the new 2.25-mile New Jersey Motorsports Park facility.

The motor issue marked the second consecutive day of disappointment for the duo after a significant accident involving a Daytona Prototype cancelled all running on Thursday's promoter test day.

But even though Burrows and Hopwood didn't get a chance to demonstrate their pace on the new circuit, there was another show of fast speed on display on Friday as the Compass360 crew did an outstanding job to pull the malignant motor from the bay and replace it with a back up Skunk2-prepared powerplant, nearly in time for the No. 76 Fischer Skis entry to make it for the final moments of Friday's final practice session.

Unfortunately the huge effort didn't pay off as another New Jersey Motorsports Park accident saw the practice session end early. Burrows and Hopwood will now face the challenge of getting just one qualifying session to get up to speed before Sunday's 8:45 AM race start.

"I think this race is going to be a big challenge given that neither of us have any laps here and we're likely to be starting close to the back on a track that is pretty narrow so passing will be harder than usual," said Burrows. "This is probably not the best place to have the ST and GS guys running together but we'll just see if we can pull a rabbit out of the hat. I'm glad Scott (Pruett) is fine, and my hat is off to the Compass360 guys for their work this afternoon. Hopefully we can pay that back with a good move forward once the race starts."

"I just went out and the motor was really flat and before I could even bring it back to the pits, it was a 'pop' and then just a smoke show," said Hopwood. "So it's going to be interesting for Adam and I to basically learn the track once the race starts. The job the guys did with the motor change was just awesome. I'm bummed out that we didn't get back out in time to get some laps but it certainly isn't because the guys didn't do a great job."

-credit: sgm