Monterey Calif. (8 September 2012) – The GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge team championship-leading team of Rum Bum Racing will start from the third row in the Continental Tire Sports Car Festival at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this afternoon after Nick Longhi posted a quick time of 1:35.675-seconds during this morning’s 15-minute qualifying session to put the No. 13 Rum Bum Racing Porsche sixth on the 63-car combined class grid.
The top-three GS cars are separated by just nine points in the championship with just two rounds yet to run, and the Rum Bum Racing squad is firmly focused on winning the championship title. The group utilized each of the event’s three practice sessions to work on the race set up of the car to ensure that Longhi and Matt Plumb have the best car underneath them as they contest what is sure to be an intense race around the 2.238-mile Laguna Seca circuit.
“I feel good about the pace of the car over a long run which is what we’ve been working on,” said Longhi. “We’re not super concerned about the outright speed, but more with how fast the car is at the end of the race.”
Longhi will open the 2.5-hour race before handing the controls over to Matt Plumb who will take the Porsche machine to the finish.
“It went pretty well – the car is very well prepared and the team is well prepared,” offered Longhi following the qualifying session. “In qualifying I felt like it maybe had a little bit more. There was a spun car that I maybe overreacted to a bit and I made a little mistake on another lap that maybe could have been better. But frankly I was being careful considering our position in the championship. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dropping wheels off the racetrack and damaging the suspension or anything. There is a short gap between qualifying and the race so the number one thing was to keep the car in one piece and make sure the crew can focus on the race and not be fixing something that got screwed up in qualifying. Just a fantastic job by Rum Bum Racing as always.”
Both Longhi and Plumb have years of experience at the challenging California road course and will look to put their knowledge of the 11-turn track to good use this afternoon as they look to capture maximum championship points with another good run at the Mazda Raceway circuit.
“We are racing for the championship,” added Longhi. “In essence we’re trying to beat those two other cars (the No. 83 and No. 01) so that’s what we have to key off of. So first thing – finish the race. Second thing – try to finish ahead of them. And after that if it just so happens that we’re first on the racetrack -awesome. But it’s about points right now, not race wins.”
The 2.5-hour Continental Tire Sports Car Festival event is set to go green at 2:30 PM local time (5:30 PM ET). Live timing and scoring can be followed at www.grand-am.com.
SPEED will televise the event September 16 at 1:30 PM (ET).
