January 30, 2011 (Daytona Beach, Florida) – It was a long night for the team in green, as Magnus Racing would find itself in a race against the clock to claw back time lost in the pits making repairs to the no. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.
Shortly before 11:00 PM ET, with Craig Stanton at the wheel, the car came to a stop between NASCAR turn four and the pit line entry. The car had been struggling with a broken header throughout Stanton’s stint at the wheel, and threw off the fuel mixture enough to make the car come up a few hundred crucial yards short of the pits. Being towed to the garage, the Magnus Racing crew sprang into action and needed ten laps to replace the broken header, returning the car to action with John Potter at the wheel in thirteenth position, thirteen laps behind the leader.
Cycling through all of the team’s four drivers through the night, the Magnus Racing Porsche was consistently one of the fastest GT-class cars in the field, clicking off trouble free laps and making steady progress through the field. Slowed only by a routine brake change, the team’s progress was finally stopped by a nearly three-hour full course caution period for fog. Emerging from the fog in seventh place when the race went green again, Marco Holzer moved the no. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup into sixth place shortly before 9:00 AM EST.
With six and a half hours of racing remaining, the team expects all of its drivers to be behind the wheel at least one more time before the checkered flag falls at 3:30 PM EST.
DRIVER QUOTES
Richard Lietz
The car felt perfect during my stints. The power was good and it is fast and very fun to drive. But the traffic is something else, it’s the worst traffic I have ever seen in Daytona. At times it seems very dangerous, but this is what it is all about. We just have to not have any more problems and we can still get a good result.
Craig Stanton
All of the guys did a great job through the night. John, Richard, and Marco were able to go really fast but keep the nose of the car clean and minimize time in the pits. The handling of the car has definitely changed a bit since we had to pull the swaybar off, but everyone has found a way to make it work and post competitive times. There’s still a lot of racing left so the goal is still to just be smooth and consistent and work out way forward.
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