VIR: Terry Borcheller race report

Virginia charge

Terry Borcheller enjoyed a strong run during the Oct. 9 Rolex Sports Car Series race at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Va., but a suspected electrical gremlin stopped his charge. Borcheller, of Gainesville, Ga., teamed with Hugo Guenette of Blainville, Que., in the No. 15 CB Motorsports Pontiac-powered Riley Mk XI.

Guenette started the race from 16th on the 48-car grid, with start positions based on team points after the qualifying session was rained out. Despite an occasional electrical problem that caused havoc with the engine, he moved up to sixth during the first 40 minutes of the two-hour 45-minute race. A few minutes later, he had contact with another car, judged by race officials to be his fault. He incurred a one-minute penalty, dropping him to 18th in the Daytona Prototype class, one lap behind the race leader. He raced back to 16th before handing off to Borcheller at 1h10.

Borcheller quickly regained the lost lap and moved to 11th, but he, too, was plagued by the electrical problem, likely caused by heavy rain during the race week. At 1h35, he pulled off track to try to restart his car's engine. He was able to limp back to the pit lane, where the team retired the car from the race.

"Hugo had a problem with it -- occasionally, the motor would just cut out. When I got in, I was having problems intermittently, but I could still go pretty good," Borcheller said. "All of a sudden the motor just quit and I pulled off to deal with it. It would start and go for a little bit again, so I just tried to nurse it back to the pits. The team thinks it's something electrical, something to do with the water we encountered all weekend."

tough beginnings

Borcheller had difficult starts to both his race weekend and his race stint. He missed the opening-day practice on Thursday because of highway gridlock en route from Atlanta, and he was blinded on his first fast lap.

"There was a traffic jam on the drive up from Atlanta where I sat on the freeway for three hours total. At one point, I sat in the same spot for an hour! There were two separate incidents that kept us from getting there," he reported.

"The car was not really set up for the wet; it had no grip at all. On my first green lap, the 09 car went off the track and dropped a wheel in the mud and totally sprayed the whole front of our car. I had so much mud on the windshield, I couldn't see anything. That didn't help. It was just not a real fun race, and to DNF [did not finish] was disappointing."

next

Borcheller will drive a Saleen S7R in the American Le Mans Series season finale at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, Calif., on Oct. 15.

-sp-