Shane
Lewis and Craig Stanton Again Show Strength of Southard BMW,
Incident Drops Duo Out of Contention
MONTEREY, Calif., May 7, 2006 – Shane Lewis (Jupiter,
Fla.) and Craig Stanton (Long Beach, Calif.) once again showed
that the No. 3 TrueChoice/ PAP-Parts BMW-Riley is a car to
contend with in the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series
presented by Crown Royal Special Reserve. The duo teamed for
the second time in the Southard Motorsports entry in today’s
U.S. Sports Car Invitational at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
to finish 12th. The finish was, again, not representative
of how the Powell, Ohio-based team has raced. At one point
the Steve and Martha Southard-owned entry ran as high as third
with Stanton behind the wheel and Lewis was able to go from
as low as 20th to as high as ninth, and gaining, during his
52 laps in the car. Stanton started the event and drove for
36 laps.
Suffering from a tired engine all weekend, and with no powerplant
available to make a change, they started 17th in the 27 car
Daytona Prototype field following Saturday’s 30-minute
qualifying race. However, Stanton, the 2004 Grand-Am Cup and
2005 Rolex Series GT Champion, had a spectacular run in only
his second Daytona Prototype start. He moved-up to third by
lap 30 and held it for several laps through strong driving
and pit strategy. Lewis took over driving chores on lap 36
in fifth-place but pit stops cycled him down to 20th. The
multi-time winner of Grand American-sanctioned events fought
his way back to ninth by lap 64 of the race despite seven
caution flags slowing his progress. On lap 68, as he was closing
on a string of cars, the sixth caution came out. On the re-start,
a competitor pushed Lewis wide entering the final turn hairpin
as the leaders took the green flag. The contact tore off the
nose of Lewis’ red, white and blue BMW-powered Riley
chassis and slowed his in-lap for a replacement. He would
fall from ninth to 16th to make repairs. Not giving-up, Lewis
went on the attack taking the final green flag on lap 77 of
the 88 lap event in 16th. In the ensuing 11 laps, Lewis would
make up four more positions to finish 12th overall and in
class.
“It was wild out there today,” said Lewis. “I’m
just glad we made it to the finish. The setup was pretty good
but we just had too many miles on this motor to really run
the lap times that the car was capable of. I honestly didn’t
know if the engine was going to make it through the first
practice and we got it all the way through the race. We’ll
have a brand new Dinan BMW in it for Phoenix. Craig did a
great job this weekend. We’re looking forward to getting
to Phoenix. That one is going to be really wild.”
“It was a good race,” commented Stanton. “Not
the result we wanted but we knew with the motor it was going
to be a long race. I’m definitely learning every time
I’m in the car. We got to run towards the front and
that was the place to be with all the carnage out there. With
the new motor the Southard team will be ready for Phoenix.
It is really awesome to be in this car. We’re all really
starting to click.”
Lewis and Stanton will again team behind the wheel of the
No. 3 Southard car next Saturday evening at Phoenix International
Raceway. A re-broadcast of today’s U.S. Sports Car Invitational
can be seen on SPEED at Noon (EDT) on Monday, May 8.
For more on Shane Lewis please see www.ShaneLewis.com.
Southard Motorsports can be found at www.SouthardMotorsports.com.
|
