Boris Said Returning To GRAND-AM Rolex Series with Marsh Racing In Brumos Porsche 250
Team Plans To Have Popular Veteran As Co-Driver For Remainder Of Season
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 23, 2010) - Popular veteran Boris Said has entered the Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway, co-driving Marsh Racing's No. 31 Whelen Engineering Corvette with Eric Curran.
The team competes in the production-based GT class of the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16. The race takes the green flag on Saturday, July 3 at 11 a.m. ET. (SPEED, live).
"It's a new car, and they're developing it at the race track," Said explained. "They're getting better and better with each race - they qualified fifth in the most recent race at Mid-Ohio. I talk with Eric a lot, and I feel they're overcoming the problems from earlier this year."
Marsh Racing, a veteran of NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East competition, first raced in the Rolex Series at Barber Motorsports Park in April. The team ran the next five races, with a best finish of 10th at Watkins Glen's six-hour event, with Curran co-driving with Brandon Davis.
Team owner Ted Marsh said he hopes to have Said in the car for the remainder of the Rolex Series season, as Curran's co-driver.
The Brumos Porsche 250 will also be the 100th race for the Rolex Series' headlining class, Daytona Prototypes. Said drove to a third-place finish in the 2003 Rolex 24 At Daytona, the debuting race for the DPs.
"I was in the first one and I really believed in the idea and the concept and it's become one of the most competitive series in the world," Said recalled. "You look at other series and you know which prototype is going to win because it has a competitive advantage. But not with GRAND-AM, where it's all about the driver, team and manufacturer. It isn't about just having the best car."
Daytona will be Said's second Rolex Series event this season. He raced with Turner Motorsport in the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, finishing eighth. He ran in one full Rolex Series season, losing a tiebreaker for the GT championship to teammate Bill Auberlen in 2004. He scored five of his seven career Rolex Series class victories that year. Said also has one overall victory, winning at Watkins Glen in 2006 as a replacement for Krohn Racing.
For more information, contact: J.J. O'Malley, GRAND-AM Public Relations, (386) 310-6588 or jomalley@nascar.com
Marsh Racing makes its third Rolex Series start Monday at Lime Rock.
Home Track Advantage?
Marsh Racing has been around the block in the motorsports world. From its roots in the NASCAR Nationwide Series in the late ‘90s to a move to World Challenge with Sonny Whelen in 2006, the Connecticut-based team has enjoyed success nearly every step of the way.
Another chapter was written in April when Marsh made its GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series debut at Barber Motorsports Park. Joining the GT class with a Corvette converted from its former World Challenge program, the team kick started it’s newest, and quite possibly, toughest challenge yet in the highly competitive category.
After initial talks with GRAND-AM dating back to last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, team owner Ted Marsh made the call to join the Rolex Series following the conclusion of the team’s World Challenge season late last year. It put the team in a race against the clock to be ready for 2010, thus missing the opening two rounds.
Curran spent four years in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, winning 13 races the 2008 GS Championship in a Chevy Cobalt. He also has one Rolex Series victory to his credit in the now-defunct GTS class. (Marshall Pruett)
“Part of the problem, and probably the biggest issue to this, was that we made the decision to start building a Rolex Series car very late,” said co-driver Eric Curran. “The decision didn’t get made until about December. It required us to build a whole new Corvette for this series, and we obviously weren’t going to make Daytona. Then we put a deadline of making sure we got to Barber.”
Marsh met its deadline of debuting at the Porsche 250 at Barber in April, but had a car with literally no testing miles under its belt. In fact, the Corvette was only completed two days before the event, meaning the team used that race and the Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway strictly as testing.
While the initial plan was to convert one of its World Challenge machines to GRAND-AM-spec, the team essentially ended up starting with a clean sheet of paper. The only major component both cars shared were the frame rails.
“Seventy-five percent of the body is different,” Curran said. “For example, the roof and the doors are the same, but the whole rest of the body is different. The World Challenge car can run a lot wider with big fender flares and such. GRAND-AM runs a narrower body. The body is different, the motor is different, the gearbox is different, the brakes are different. By the time we really got though with this project, there was so much stuff that was different that we essentially build a brand-new car.”
While the car in GRAND-AM trim produces less downforce and has about 100 fewer ponies under the hood, the cars are able to utilize a more flexible gearbox. But the most welcome change, Curran says, have been the tires, as World Challenge machines run on production rubber.
With all teams on equal footing with Pirelli’s P Zero line of tires, competition in GT is at an all-time high. Three Corvettes are represented in the mix of Mazdas, Camaros, BMWs and Porsches this year, but each are different in its own right.
Marsh and LG Motorsports’ Corvettes are Prep 1 cars, which are built from a production car frame. Banner Racing’s Corvette is a tube-framed Prep 2 machine, which actually started life as a Pontiac GTO.R. While the Leighton Reese-owned Corvette has achieved the most early season success, it’s essentially a re-bodied Pontiac GXP.R built by Pratt & Miller.
“[Leighton’s] got an advantage because the car’s so well sorted and has years of experience behind him with help from GM and Pratt & Miller in the past,” Curran said. “As far as speed and development goes, he’s got a very well sorted race car, where LG and us are trying to sort out how to get a Prep 1 car up to speed.
“On paper, a Prep 1 car should be at least as quick, if not quicker than a Prep 2 car. And I think based on us starting to get our car up to speed, and some of our results in testing, we’re starting to get closer to that. But it’s like anything else. Leighton has three years of experience with a Prep 2 and we have three races worth of experience.”
Curran doesn’t have any doubts the team will eventually get to the front, but it’s taking development one step at a time. A second, all-new chassis is currently being built, with the hope of it appearing for some end-of-season races. Marsh will continue to use its current ‘development’ car in the meantime.
While it's an uphill battle for any new competitor to GRAND-AM, Marsh is making strides with its Whelen Corvette. (John Dagys)
“It’s coming along,” Marsh said. “I think we’ve gotten the car pretty competitive now after the past couple of weeks of testing. We were pretty happy with the results at the official test at Lime Rock. We’ll see. You never know until you get to the race track. Obviously when it’s race time, you find out.”
The team was able to use the month-long break between VIR and today’s Memorial Day Classic at Lime Rock Park to make further developments to its Corvette. It also gave Marsh the opportunity to try out a new driver.
Reigning World Challenge champion Brandon Davis will co-drive with Curran in the next two races following an encouraging test at Putnum Park three weeks ago. Davis has stepped in the place of car owner Sonny Whelen, who will concentrate on private testing to help get him up to speed in the highly competitive category.
“We’ve used the first two races strictly as tests,” Marsh said. “Obviously we weren’t competitive enough to be up in the finishing order anyways, so we used them as tests. Our first real ‘race’ is this weekend, as far as I’m concerned. I’m hoping the two of them can get through that without a problem. We’ll see it how goes.”
With two World Challenge veterans at the wheel at the team’s home track, today’s race could shape up be the Marsh’s breakout in Rolex Series competition.
“I think we should be in good shape here,” Curran said. “Based on our testing results we’re looking pretty strong. It’s a home track advantage which buys us a little bit here. Brandon will be more up to speed than what Sonny has been so far. I think with a lot of testing we’ve done we’ve gotten the car in a better place speed-wise.”
And with the goal of expanding into a two-car effort by next year, and Whelen also possibly eyeing a Daytona Prototype program in the future, you can be certain Marsh Racing has a long and bright future ahead of itself in GRAND-AM.
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