Team Sahlen enters round 2 of the 2011 Grand American with a very solid 7th place finish at the ROLEX 24 Hours at Daytona season opener. This excellent finish coupled with Wayne Nonnamaker’s fine showing of being the Top Mazda in Qualifying has everyone at Team Sahlen anticipating great things at this weekend’s event at Homestead.
“The Homestead event is a very short and quick weekend. Thankfully, we were able to come and test here in the Fall at the official Grand American Test. At the test we learned a lot of things. And the progress we made showed, with Team Sahlen posting the top Mazda time of the weekend. Additionally, even after the test, we came away with some further ideas of what we wanted to try when we came back. And we will be trying those new set up pieces in practice in hopes of finding that extra little bit of edge on the competition.” – shared Wayne Nonnamaker
Further adds Catherine Crawford Wallace, Team Engineer – “Homestead presents us with another “roval” course to which we will take the lessons we learned at Daytona. The track presents its own challenges with the rear tyres and the heat. The schedule is condensed so hopefully we will be able to use the toolbox created at the test days to find the necessary speed to compete at the sharp end.”
For the Homestead event, Team Sahlen will be entering 3 SpeedSource built Mazda RX-8s. The #42 Mazda will be started by Wayne Nonnamaker and finished by former Indycar driver Memo Gidley. Then in the #43 racer will see Wayne jumping over from his starting duties at #42 to finish for his Dad, Joe Nonnamaker. The 3rd RX-8 will be the #49 that will be started by Joe Sahlen and finished by Will Nonnamaker
Beyond being a very busy driver, Wayne Nonnamaker will be working to sustain his points lead in the Bob Akin Sportsman Award. Wayne attained the lead in this contest in part to his 7th place finish at Daytona and in part to his double stint at the end of the race which gained him valuable mileage points
In the 2010 Homestead event, Team Sahlen finished a very respectable 10th and 12th place in class, in only their 2nd race with the Mazda RX-8s.
The Homestead Rolex event will start at 12 Noon EST – on March 5th. SPEED TV will televise the race live.
The 2011 Team Sahlen GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 is supported by Mazda, Mazdaspeed, HRPWorld.com, Cool Shirt, Racetech Seats, BBS, Racing Print Media, Alcon, Mothers Polish, EMCO, TheRaceSite.com, Western New York Flash, Grassroots Motorsports, Castrol Oil, Holliday Canopies, ASC Industries, Muscle Milk, Iannetti Design Ideas, CM Racing