Alton, Va. (April 26, 2010) - The race weekends in the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge seem to be repeating themselves for the Multimatic Motorsports squad with lady luck missing in action.
Once more, the Ford Mustang Boss 302R team put in a strong showing, starting on the front row for a fourth consecutive race and tying for the most laps led in the two hour, 30 minute event at Virginia International Raceway. But the team, yet again, left the track without a podium finish.
Despite some small engine woes for both Multimatic Motorsports entries, the duo of Joe Foster and Scott Maxwell, placed seventh after starting second and having to fight back from contact early on in the race.
Young guns Gunnar Jeannette and Frankie Montecalvo, who had opted for a rain set-up due to the impending weather, crossed the finish line in 13th.
The race started out strong for "Front Row Joe" Foster who took over first place at the start. However, seven laps in, Foster was a victim of bad luck when the third-place BMW lunged into him while making a move on the second place car, forcing Foster to go off course.
Returning to the track in 11th place, Foster fought his way back through the field with a slightly damaged car and by the time he pitted on lap 21 to hand the #15 Multimatic Motorsports car to Maxwell, he had made his way up to second.
Meanwhile, in the #16 Bayshore Recycling Ford Mustang Boss 302R, Montecalvo was having another good run. The 19-year-old, who has impressed many so far this season with his talent and maturity behind the wheel, made his way up from his ninth place on the starting grid to fourth before entering pit lane on lap 21, taking advantage of a caution period for a driver change.
Gunnar Jeannette, now taking his place in the #16 Multimatic entry came out in 22nd. Both Jeannette and Maxwell quickly made their way back up and were sitting respectively in eighth and third place halfway through the Bosch Engineering VIR 200. With about an hour to go, Maxwell had regained the race lead.
The Multimatic Motorsports crew executed their second stop at the beginning of the final pit window with about 45 minutes to go in the race. The team was hoping for a higher finish once the pit stops had cycled through, but Maxwell had to deal with an ill-handling car following the early race incident as well as some engine issues, while Jeannette also had to face his own engine woes in a car that did not have an optimal set-up for the dry track conditions.
In spite of those difficulties, Maxwell made his way from 17th to finish seventh and Jeanette moved up from 19th to 13th following their final stop.
With a little over a month before the next event, the Multimatic Motorsports team will head back to their home-base in Markham, Ontario, Canada to continue its development of the Ford Mustang Boss 302R and prepare for Round 5 of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge which takes place at Lime Rock Park on May 28-29, 2010.
Multimatic Motorsports Quoteboard:
Joe Foster, #15 Ford Mustang Boss 302R
"We had a good start on the outside of the front row and I got the lead right at the green flag and led for a while. Unfortunately I got hit and it damaged the car, and it was just not right after that. It was not handling as well as before. Nevertheless we got back in second place, under green, and we pitted to put Scott in. He did the best he could with a slightly wounded car and kept it into the top three for a while.
"Then we had a little bit of an engine issue at the end, this is a development program and these sort of problems can be expected, so that plus the earlier damage hindered the speed.
"I think in the big picture, everything we had control over on our car we did really well, but there were a lot of things we didn't have control over, that didn't go so well. Other than that everything was fine. I think it was a good race for the program, our strategy was right and had it not been for the hit, I think we would have been on the podium."
Scott Maxwell, #15 Ford Mustang Boss 302R
"It was more racing bad luck. We had good strategy this time but after being hit early on in the race the car didn't handle as well afterwards, and then we also had an engine going soft on us that was losing power and on top of that we had some problems with other cars holding us back a bit.
"So, it wasn't a great day but we did have a competitive car, we're just not getting any breaks right now. All we can do is move on to the next one and hope things change."
Frankie Montecalvo, #16 Bayshore Recycling Ford Mustang Boss 302R
"I had an OK start. I didn't really gain anything but definitely didn't lose any positions. I was defending my position and trying to stay out of trouble at the start. Then I worked on picking the cars off one by one and worked my way up.
"We had a good race, but we started having a little misfire with the engine and we were a little bit down on power, I think it got worse for Gunnar later on in the race, but other than that the car was pretty good. It feels good to finish a second race in a row, it wasn't the position we wanted but I prefer to finish a race to not finishing at all.
"The whole team is working hard and everyone has been doing a great job, we just have to keep at it and hope that we can have a better result at Lime Rock next month."
Gunnar Jeannette, #16 Bayshore Recycling Ford Mustang Boss 302R
"In the end our car wasn't quick enough. Unlike the 15 car, we decided, because there was a very good chance of rain, to prep the car for rain, and sacrificed the drive set-up. And then it never rained! So that didn't go too well for us.
"It felt like we had an issue with the engine where we kind of went down on power. Through my first stop, after there was a yellow, I was right there with everybody and able to race but then I just ended up getting passed on the straightaways, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.
"Everybody on the team is doing all they can and working really hard, we just didn't have the car for it today. Now we'll just look forward to Lime Rock and hopefully be able to get one of the Boss 302Rs on the podium."
FURTHER INFORMATION
Hao Wang or Sean Mason
Multimatic Motorsports
Phone:905-470-0025
Email:racepr@multimatic.com
Twitter:www.twitter.com/multimaticrace
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