Monterey Calif. (7 September 2013) – The GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge championship-leading team of Rum Bum Racing will start the Continental Tire Sports Car Festival at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca from the seventh row after Nick Longhi set a lap time of 1:37.800-seconds during Saturday afternoon’s 15-minute qualifying session. The No. 13 Rum Bum Racing Porsche will line up 13th on the 54-car combined class grid.
Rum Bum Racing holds a 51-point advantage in the 2013 championship with just two rounds yet to run, and could secure a second consecutive GRAND-AM Team Championship with a finish of 11th or better in Sunday’s 2.5-hour race.
The group utilized Saturday’s two practice sessions ahead of the qualifying session to dial in the No. 13 Rum Bum Racing Porsche to ensure that Longhi and Matt Plumb have the proper set-up for Sunday’s race around the 2.238-mile Laguna Seca road course.
Longhi will open the race before handing the controls over to Matt Plumb who will take the Porsche machine to the finish. The team has four poles to its credit, but hasn’t yet fully unlocked the speed in the No. 13 as the group continues to work towards finding the best balance for the penultimate race of the season.
“We’ve improved the balance with the car, but for some reason we just are not as quick as we were hoping we would be,” said Longhi. “I made a mistake in turn nine and that certainly cost us some time that we left on the table. But, even if that hadn’t happened we still are not where we thought we would be. But this is just an incredible team, and we’ll keep working on it and be ready to go. We are very focused and will just keep working.”
Both Longhi and Plumb have years of experience at the California circuit and will look to use their knowledge of the 11-turn track to move forward with a clean, trouble-free run and come home with a top-11 finish to clinch the 2013 GRAND-AM championship title.
The 2.5-hour Continental Tire Sports Car Festival event is set to begin at 10:00 AM local time (1:00 PM ET). Live timing and scoring can be followed at www.grand-am.com.
The event will be televise on FOX Sports 1 on September 15at 4:00 PM (ET).
