Dempsey Racing Back in P2 Action at Mid-Ohio with Dempsey, Foster and Cameron in No. 27 Trina Solar/GNC Beverages Motegi Racing Lola-Judd
LEXINGTON, Ohio (August 3, 2012) – Dempsey Racing shook off some Thursday issues that forced them to miss practice and took to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Friday morning for the first run of the weekend with drivers Patrick Dempsey, Joe Foster and Dane Cameron at the wheel of the No. 27 Trina Solar/GNC Beverages/Motegi Racing/Dempsey Racing Lola-Judd in preparation for tomorrow’s American Le Mans Series Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge.
The Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge will be broadcast live at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT on ABC this Saturday, August 4.
Longtime Dempsey Racing teammate Cameron is joining Dempsey and Foster as a co-driver in the No. 27 for the first time in an ALMS race but he has played a key role in the testing and development of the new P2 program this is making just it third race start at Mid-Ohio. He turned the No. 27’s top lap time of 1:16.224 in Friday’s second practice, third fastest in P2 and sixth overall in the 31-car field.
“It was a good first session, right where we needed to be, and it was good to go get comfortable in the car again,” Dempsey said. “Not too aggressive, just get comfortable and put down some laps, we got 10 laps each. It is great having Dane here, getting some feedback from him to see what the car is capable of doing and he has a great relationship with the team, so that chemistry is really important to develop the car and the setup this weekend.”
The Dempsey Racing squad missed Thursday practice in total when a faulty fuel cell bladder was found in the team’s new Lola B12-80.
“We are behind the 8 ball because we didn’t get to do the test day yesterday,” Foster said. “We found an ancient and leaky fuel cell in the car, and with the help of the Dyson team, we were able to borrow a fuel cell from them, and get out today. We are sort of starting our weekend, unfortunately, when everybody is a third of the way into theirs, so we will just focus on the process. Dane got some laps, I got some laps, Patrick got some laps, we are going to make a bunch of changes to the car and see how it goes next time.”
Dempsey once again gave full credit to his team and crew for responding well when racing’s inevitable challenges emerge.
“The guys did a great job last night,” Dempsey said. “They worked all night long and got the fuel cell in the car. It’s unfortunate, the problem we had with the fuel cell cost us the whole day yesterday. That puts us a little bit behind today, but this year is all about learning, and the more mistakes we make this year the less we will make next year. So we learned a lot and we won’t make those mistakes again.”
No. 27 Trina Solar/GNC Beverages/Motegi Racing P2 team is running its first race since posting the effort’s first podium finish two events ago at Lime Rock Park. Dempsey and Foster co-drove to third place in that race in P2 while their teammates Henri Richard and Duncan Ende finished in the same spot in the PC class for their career-best result in the No. 25 STANDD/Racer’s Roast Oreca FLM09.
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 Flowery Branch, Georgia. Owned by actor/driver Patrick Dempsey, the team races in support of the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing (www.dempseycenter.org) in Dempsey’s hometown of Lewiston, Maine, and the Team Seattle Guild (www.teamseattle.com) to benefit the Seattle Children’s Hospital Heart Center (www.seattlechildrens.org).
About Dempsey Racing’s Partners: Dempsey Racing (www.dempseyracing.net) is an official Mazda (www.mazdausa.com) racing team and has competed exclusively in Mazda RX-8 GTs in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series since 2007. A primary partner for the Mazda program is VISIT FLORIDA (www.VISITFLORIDA.com), the official tourism marketing corporation for the State of Florida, and its www.ShareaLittleSunshine.org and www.FishingCapital.com promotional programs, and the television show Bass 2 Billfish with Peter Miller. Additional Dempsey Racing partners include 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. New partners for 2012 include GNC Beverages (www.drinkGNC.com), built upon the 75 years of nutrition innovation from the leader in sports nutrition, Motegi Racing (www.motegiracing.com), a leading manufacturer of competition and high-performance tuning wheels designed and engineered for performance, Racing Electronics (www.racingelectronics.com), the number one source for professional race communications worldwide, and Silicon Tech Racing (www.silicontechracing.com) which provides high-tech corporations a dedicated marketing platform through sports car road racing focused on technology executives.