Rhor Porshce team awaits Mosport

28 July, 1997

CINCINNATI, Ohio -- "I'm looking forward to racing at Mosport ... we need some tracks which are more wide-open, and thus better for the Porsche to stretch its legs and run free." Jochen Rohr, owner of the Rohr Motorsport Porsche 911 Turbo team in the Exxon Supreme GTS-1 class, has seen his team's class points-leading margin dwindle in the last few events of Professional SportsCar Racing's 1997 season. "Right now, we have only 25 points on Stu Hayner and Roger Schramm, and 35 on Doc Bundy. The way those two cars have been running, we need more than that as a buffer if we are to complete our plan to win the GTS-1 championship," Rohr said. "Our Porsche is running as well as it can, but the lap time gap between the best we can do and what the Camaro and the Panoz are turning, it almost seems like they're in another class." Rohr's team won the Rolex 24 at Daytona back in February, placed second in the SUPERFLO 12 HOURS at Sebring, scored thirds at Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen and Sears Point, and a mishap-caused fifth at Lime Rock. At Mosport Park at the end of August, Rohr's co-driver, Andy Pilgrim, is poised to record his 100th consecutive race finish in SportsCar competition. Finish #98 came at Sears Point, #99 could be Mosport's SPEEDVISION Cup for Stock SportsCars race on Aug. 31, and #100 the Exxon Supreme GTS-1 event the following day. "The streak isn't everything in my racing life," Pilgrim said. "It's fun, but I'm not going to be crushed if and when it ends, because it's nothing I can take full credit for. "I've had 22 different co-drivers since it began in 1992, I've driven a wide variety of cars, and they've been prepared by so many different crew chiefs. They all deserve as much credit as do I. I'm hired by teams for only one mission -- to do the best I can -- and that's what I focus on, not statistics." Rohr has raced at Mosport twice, the 1995 and 1996 SCCA World Challenge races. Pilgrim has finished in the top three seven of eight times he has raced there, and won the 1990 and 1992 World Challenge races there. Although races outside of the IMSA/Professional SportsCar Racing domain are not counted in the streak, the number would still be impressive if they were. Since July, 1992, Pilgrim's only two dnf's are the 1993 World Challenge race at Road America, and the 1996 BPR Global Endurance GT race at Silverstone, England. Pilgrim was the highest-placed American driver in June's 24 Hours of LeMans race -- finishing second in the GT2 class -- and placed second in the Legends class of the Pike's Peak Hill Climb on July 4.

"Pike's Peak is a fun challenge," Pilgrim said, "but I'm not doing it again. I just don't like getting up at 4:30 a.m. every morning. Ofr course, I think I said that after the 1995 and 1996 events, too."