Grand Prix of Miami - Saturday Report
Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 12:40AM 
What a day.
To get things started off, Craig had a right front tire fail on our GT car as he exited the NASCAR turn four banking in morning practice. The result was a Big One – data registered the impact at 7G’s, and Craig decelerated from 128mp to 96mph in two-tenths of a second. As a result, the crew worked throughout the day to repair the car and make it ready for the afternoon’s race – replacing the front bumper and splitter assembly, right front and right rear suspensions, right side front fender and door, repairing the right rear quarter panel, and replacing both the engine and transmission. It was a HUGE job – but the car was on the grid and ready to answer the bell when the time came.
Today was also the day that the Cayman would start its first Continental Sports Car Challenge race in the GS category. John started the car last after the ride-height penalty, but the car was on the move from the word go. The little Cayman and John seemed to get along well, as it wasn’t long before he was in the top-10, running as high as sixth. But, as the team was getting ready to bring him in for fuel and tires, John radioed that the car had lost power steering – just in time to hand it over to Bryan.
Unfortunately for Brian and the team, the decision was made shortly afterward to bring the Cayman in and retire it from the race, to prevent any further damage as a result of the loss of power steering. Considering it was the first race weekend for the Cayman, the team was expecting some teething issues, but came away very impressed with the pace.
With that race wrapped up, it was time to for John and Craig to jump into the rebuilt No.44 Porsche GT3 Cup. John started the race, but we had issues from the beginning with the car alignment not being quite right (no surprise given the 7G impact it suffered in the morning). It took the first part of the race to sort out, but once it was, Craig was running times on pace with the leaders. Far down in the order with a wounded car, Craig brought the car home in 14th place to collect more crucial season long points.
Two major themes from this weekend: one, the Cayman will be a front-runner in GS . Two, there is nothing that the Magnus Racing crew can’t handle.
Reader Comments (3)
I watched your crew resurrect the GT car before the start of the GP of Miami Grand Am race. Extremely impressive to see how they transformed what looked like a hopeless wreck into a competitive racer in hours!! Crew was very tolerant of hovering fans despite what must have been a high pressure situation.