Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8 GTs Finish Sixth and 11th at The Glen as Dane Cameron Leads Late in No. 41 Team Seattle Mazda
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (August 13, 2011) – Dempsey Racing’s No. 41 Team Seattle/Global Diving & Salvage Mazda RX-8 GT was leading Saturday evening’s Canadian Tire 200 at The Glen with little over five minutes to go in the timed two-hour sprint race but a late pit stop for a splash of fuel resulted in a sixth-place finish for drivers James Gué and Dane Cameron while their teammates Patrick Dempsey and Joe Foster finished 11th in the Dempsey Racing No. 40 VISIT FLORIDA/ModSpace/Construct Corps/Trina Solar Mazda RX-8 GT.
Both Dempsey Racing Mazda teams gambled on fuel-stretching strategies that needed more than just the race’s lone caution period to work. Instead, it was clean-and-green for the final one-hour and forty-five minutes in a race that went into the record books as the fastest in GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series history, with an overall winning average speed of 122.308 mph.
“We definitely had the right decisions and the right calls,” Cameron said. “Everything worked out as we had anticipated. At this point, all we want to do is get the car on the podium and get a victory before the year is out, so we need to take some bigger risks. We took a big risk today and we knew we were going to be really tight on fuel, but we just figured that we’d go for it and hope for a yellow.”
Cameron led laps 86 and 87, and joined Gué in driving to the front several times in the fast and flat-out race, but the No. 41 was the last car to lead before pitting under green and giving the top spot to the GT race-winning Porsche.
“I think we did the best with what we had to do today,” Gué said. “Looking back, I wouldn’t have done anything different. We can certainly leave here knowing that we did our best and the car was good. We ran near the front for awhile and Dane led a few laps, which is always good. We’ll try to keep this momentum going and carry it over to Montreal.”
The Glen race kicked off a tight back-to-back stretch of races that sees the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series head to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve next week for the Montreal 200.
“The cars are intact, and we’re getting ready to go up to Montreal next weekend,” said Dempsey, who ran as high as sixth in his opening stint in the No. 40. “I thought it was good, the best race I’ve driven, this year. When I came in the pits I was in contention, gave the car to Joe, but things just didn’t pan out our way. We rolled the dice, but everybody came up short.”
Foster was pleased with the performance of both Dempsey Racing Mazdas.
“I think the results may not show it, but actually, it was a very good race for both cars,” Foster said. “Patrick stayed on the lead lap, we had a reasonably good pit stop, and then we just played the fuel conservation mode and tried to make it. For the first time in probably 148 years, there were no yellows in the last hour of a Rolex Series race. That happens, so we had to pit right near the end, had to come in for fuel. But it was a gamble worth taking.”
Dempsey was making his first start on The Glen’s 2.45-mile NASCAR short course at the Canadian Tire 200.
“It’s fast,” Dempsey said. “It’s so much fun to be here. It’s the first time for me on the short track. I didn’t realize how fast it is. You are full out all the time. It’s great fun.”
The No. 41 team’s second-straight competitive showing – they finished third two races ago at New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) – was a morale boost for everybody on the Dempsey Racing team.
“I’m just super happy for the No. 41 Team Seattle/Global Diving Mazda team that almost won the race,” Foster said. “Dane and James drove fantastic, and honestly, it was a great pit strategy. They almost won, but they had to stop for fuel as well. Big picture, I think it was a great day for both cars.”
Even the No. 41 team’s late splash-and-go pit stop was executed perfectly, allowing the team to still come out of the race with the sixth-place finish.
“We were on reserve again on the in-lap after the checkered flag,” Cameron said. “That was the perfect timing and amount of fuel to get us to the end, which was just what we needed. It got us back out ahead of one or two other guys. The pit stops were fantastic. We did a really good job on timing our fuel fills and making sure that we set ourselves up in a good position. It was a big team effort the whole day and it very nearly paid off in a big way for us.”
Next up for Dempsey Racing and the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series is next weekend’s Montreal 200 on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The race can be seen in same-day coverage on SPEED, Saturday, August 20th, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.
Noteworthy
- Dempsey was impressed by the high-speed action of the GRAND-AM Rolex Series race and the overall spectacle of running with NASCAR at The Glen. “If you’re a fan and you love road racing, it was certainly a great show on television,” Dempsey said. “We have a great crowd here sharing the weekend with the NASCAR Sprint Cup guys. I think it’s a great race. It shows that this series has some really competitive racing and that anyone can win the thing.”
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, Trina Solar (www.trinasolar.com), a leading manufacturer of high-quality solar photovoltaic (PV) modules that deliver reliable, environmentally-friendly power to homes and businesses and value to customers, and Specialized Bicycle Components (www.specialized.com), a manufacturer and worldwide supplier of technically advanced bicycles and related components.