Dane Cameron Wins His And Dempsey Racing's First Pole In No. 41 Team Seattle/Global Diving & Salvage Mazda RX-8 GT
Dempsey Racing’s first pole position in the No. 41 Team Seattle/Global Diving & Salvage Mazda RX-8 GT. Even better, team owner/driver Patrick Dempsey put his own touch on a great day for Dempsey Racing by setting a personal-best qualifying effort with an eighth-place run in the No. 40 VISIT FLORIDA/ModSpace/Construct Corps Mazda RX-8 GT.
The Dempsey team was qualifying for tomorrow’s Porsche 250, a 2-3/4-hour timed sprint that starts at 3 p.m. local time on the scenic Barber road course. The race will air the following day on SPEED, Sunday, April 10, at Noon ET/9 a.m. PT.
“It’s very exciting just for me, and to achieve one for the team also,” said Cameron, who will co-drive in tomorrow’s race with James Gué. “I mean, they’ve been at this for a couple years now and it’s their second year with two cars. Last year, they had their first win, so now we have our first pole to go with that. I’m proud to be a part of the team, and I’m proud to have done that for the team, so hopefully, if everything goes well tomorrow, maybe we can get win number two in the column for Dempsey Racing.”
Cameron turned the session’s top time of 1:31.106 (90.883 mph) on his second lap of the session. The pole-winning effort topped the second-place qualifying efforts by Dempsey’s teammate Joe Foster at Barber in 2009 and later that season at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. Foster will co-drive tomorrow with Dempsey, who qualified at 1:32.404 (89.607 mph).
“This is a real testament to how hard the team has been working to give us the cars that have done so well here today,” said Dempsey, who missed Thursday’s opening day of practice. “I was pretty happy, I got off the plane late last night and missed all of the practice. I had a little bit of practice this morning, I am excited, it’s always great to be back at the track and of course we are here running the Mazdas, and our hearts go out to all of the people in Japan and the suffering that they are going through. I hope everybody can take a look at the Red Cross message and make some donations to help, I don’t think we really know the extent of what is going on over there, how much pain is going on over there. Our thoughts are with them and we are racing with them this weekend.”
Dempsey Racing is part of a Mazda-organized effort to raise funds for the American Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief Fund this weekend. Both team Mazdas are carrying special graphics encouraging race fans to support the people affected by the devastating events in Japan by texting a $10 donation to REDCROSS at 90999 (message and data rates may apply).
About Dempsey Racing
A fulltime and year-round enterprise, Dempsey Racing (www.dempseyracing.net) is a professional sports car auto racing team based in the greater Atlanta area in Norcross, Georgia. Owned by actor/driver Patrick Dempsey, the team races in support of the Team Seattle Guild (www.teamseattle.com) to benefit the Seattle Children’s Hospital Heart Center (www.seattlechildrens.org) and the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing (www.dempseycenter.org) in Dempsey’s hometown of Lewiston, Maine.
Dempsey Racing Partners
Dempsey Racing is an official Mazda (www.mazdausa.com) racing team and has competed exclusively in Mazda RX-8 GTs since 2007. Additional team partners include Global Diving & Salvage (www.gdiving.com), the largest diving contractor on the West Coast, VISIT FLORIDA (www.VISITFLORIDA.com), the official tourism marketing corporation for the State of Florida, ModSpace (www.modspace.com), a North American leader in temporary and permanent modular buildings and portable storage, Construct Corps (www.constructcorps.com), a leading provider of temporary skilled workers for the construction industry, and Specialized Bicycle Components (www.specialized.com), a manufacturer and worldwide supplier of technically advanced bicycles and related components.