August 24, 2010 (Salt Lake City, Utah) – With only two races remaining in the 2010 GRAND-AM Rolex Sportscar Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16, John Potter and Craig Stanton are now headed north of the border – barely – to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on the Ile Notre Dame in Montreal, Quebec, for this weekend’s Montreal 200.
While Montreal is a favorite amongst the team – several of them live in the city, and Potter is eager to show off all the French he learned last week at the Grand Prix de Trois Rivieres – the team are hoping for different weather conditions than they experienced at last year’s Montreal 200. Heavy periods of rain meant that Potter and Stanton – along with several other teams – pitted several times due to the changing conditions. Eventually, Potter and Stanton finished ninth after they were caught a lap down due to a late race yellow.
After struggling at the Crown Royal 200 at the Glen earlier this month with numerous tire and brake problems, the Magnus Racing team hopes to use a good finish at Montreal to springboard to another strong result at next month’s season finale at Miller Motorsports Park in Salt Lake City. With only two races remaining in the team’s inaugural season in the Rolex Sportscar Series, Potter and Stanton aim to improve on their season best finish of fourth, which they scored at VIRginia International Raceway.
“If there is one thing more fun than dodging Daytona Prototypes, its dodging them in the middle of a downpour,” said Potter. “So as long as we don’t have rain like we did last year, I’m looking forward to Montreal, which is a track that should suit our car well. And because several members of our crew live in Montreal, and we’d like to give them a good reason to celebrate after the race. Not that they really need a reason…”
Stanton is looking forward to getting back in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup after a completely forgettable last outing at Watkins Glen.
“Watkins Glen was so disappointing, especially for the guys who worked so hard on the car all weekend,” said Craig. “We had tire problems. Then we had brake problems. Now, we’re just going to put all that behind us and run to the front in Montreal. John had a great opening stint there last year, and our strategy ended up not working out with the way the yellows fell. But we always follow up a rough race with a strong one, and this should be a good weekend for Magnus Racing.”
Practice and qualifying will be held on Friday, with Saturday’s two-hour race broadcast live on SPEED Channel beginning at 2:00 PM ET. Fans of Magnus Racing can stay up to date on the team’s progress throughout the weekend on the team’s website (magnusracing.com), via twitter (@magnusracing) and with GRAND-AM’s live timing and scoring at www.grand-am.com.
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-AM Rolex Sports Car Series can e-mail info@magnusracing.com. All press inquiries can be directed to press@magnusracing.com.