Watkins Glen III: Darren Law race report

Rough Ride for Law at Rolex Grand American Crown Royal 250

Red Bull Brumos Porsche Daytona Prototype squad, as they showed competitive speed in the Rolex Grand American Crown Royal 250 at Watkins Glen International Raceway. It all came to a quick end however, as the #58 entry was involved in a multi car accident that ended the team's weekend and left the Brumos squad with some hard work before the penultimate round of the 2005 season at Virginia International Raceway.

Race Action

The Red Bull Brumos Porsche had shown speed much of the Crown Royal 250 weekend, and even climbed to second quickest during the third practice session before David Donohue placed the brilliant blue #58 car 7th on the grid with a lap of 1:46.874 around the 3.4 mile "Long" Watkins Glen road course. Donohue then drove a clean quick stint before handing off to Law on lap 40 of the 66 lap event.

Law immediately set out to catch the lead pack and had made several passes over his three laps in the car before a traffic jam in the treacherous "esses" section of the circuit forced Darren to slow aggressively. The #19 Finlay Motorsports Daytona Prototype entry failed to slow in time, and made heavy contact with the rear of the Red Bull car, sending Darren hard into the armco on the right side of the track. Law, an innocent victim in the contact, was especially disappointed in the results of what had been a strong weekend for the Brumos crew.

Quote

Darren Law

I think maybe (Max) Papis had a bit of a moment at the top of the esses, and everyone started checking up. I slowed down just like everyone else, and it looked like we were all going to make it through cleanly. I really thought I had made it through OK, and then I got hit by the 19 car. I'm not sure if he didn't see that everyone had checked up or what the problem was, but he just drove right into the back of me which turned me into the wall. After that first hit, I was just a pinball, and ended up getting hit four or five more times. I'm OK, but I'm sure I'll be pretty sore tomorrow. We had a good car too. David drove great, and we were looking good for another top ten and maybe even a top five this weekend.

Work to do

The Brumos crew will have it work cut out as the team will set about the task of preparing the battered #58 car for the VIR 400 the weekend of October 7-9. For information on this past weekend's event or to see upcoming race schedules please log onto www.grand-am.com.

-dlr-