The No.44 Magnus Racing Porsche Cayman finished 10th at VIR.April 27, 2010 (Salt Lake City, Utah) – In the third race of its GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge career, the No.44 Magnus Racing Porsche Cayman recorded its first top-10 result of the 2010 season at last weekend’s Bosch Engineering 200 at Virginia International Raceway.
Built by Magnus Racing throughout the 2009-2010 winter, the Cayman made its debut at Homestead-Miami and has done the bulk of its testing at each GRAND-AM event. The car showed speed straight out of the gate but has undergone continuous improvement at each weekend.
Team owner John Potter put his Cayman 14th on the starting grid, holding the position at the start and picking up a couple of positions throughout the first hour of the race. Pitting for fuel and tires, Leh Keen jumped in the car and began to progress through the field. With some help from strategy calls from the pits as well as an extended yellow flag session, Keen got the Magnus Racing Cayman up to third place where he had a large battle for position that the Speed TV cameras covered – along with several shots of Keen catching air through the notorious esses of VIR.
The strategy was a gamble, which would have paid off if the race had another extended yellow-flag session – not an uncommon occurrence in a Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race. However, the yellow that the team needed never came, and the Cayman was brought into the pits for a splash of fuel. The stop would drop the Cayman to 12th overall, but he would make up two positions before the checkered to finish in tenth.
On the heels of finishing fourth earlier in the day in the GT class of the Rolex Sportscar Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No.16, the Cayman’s result marked the most successful day yet of the short history of Magnus Racing.
“It was a really good day, and I’m proud that the team was able to get the Cayman up to third place today,” said Potter following the race. “We’ve been working on the car and changing things each session since Homestead and continuing to make progress. There is still a ways to go but this is very encouraging. Perhaps if we had gone a different way on strategy we could have had an even better finishing position, but we have to always try different things since we can’t win on horsepower on these bigger tracks. I’m looking forward to Lime Rock at the end of next month.”
The Continental Tire Sports Car Series’ Bosch Engineering VIR 200 will be shown on May 1 at 1:00 PM EST on SPEED Channel. The next race on the GRAND-AM schedule is the weekend at Lime Rock Park, May 28-31. Magnus Racing fans can see photo galleries of the weekend at www.magnusracing.com, or facebook.com/magnusracing.
More information about Magnus Racing can be found at www.magnusracing.com. Any organization interested in learning more about how to be involved with one of the most unique and visible teams in the Grand-American Rolex Sportscar Series can e-mail info@magnusracing.com. All press inquiries can be directed to press@magnusracing.com.