Subaru Road Racing Team’s Consistency Paying Off
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Eating Interstate Miles Between California and
Connecticut -
Phoenixville, PA – May 16, 2009
The Subaru Road Racing Team (SRRT) finished Saturday’s
race at Laguna Seca Raceway in seventh position, placing
team drivers Kris Skavnes and Andrew Aquilante third in
the Driver Championship points, and Subaru fourth for
the Street Tuner class Manufacturer Championship of the
Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge series.
From a logistical perspective, the SRRT hauler now has
the challenging task of completing the 3,000 mile run
between Monterey, Calif., site of this weekend’s
Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge series race, and
Lakeville, Conn., where practice starts this Friday at
10 a.m.
Then the championship hopes of the team will rest on its
drivers - Andrew Aquilante, Chester Springs, Pa., and
Kristian Skavnes, Sparta, N.J., as they begin round 5 of
the season from their admirable third-in-points view.
“We came away from today’s race with no damage and only
routine maintenance needed at Lime Rock when the hauler
and the #111 Subaru arrive Thursday afternoon,” praised
Joe Aquilante on the team’s positive performance.
Aquilante owns the Phoenixville, Pa.-based SRRT Phoenix
outfit which prepares the team’s Subaru Legacy 2.5GT
spec.B race car and serves as factory race partner for
Subaru of America, Inc. This is SRRT’s third season
racing the Subaru. The team won two KONI Challenge races
in 2007 and one in 2008. The car races in the Street
Tuner class, the larger of the two classes in the
series.
“At green-flag race speeds, we typically find ourselves
in a two pit stop strategy to meet fueling windows,”
said James Han, motorsports marketing manager for Subaru
of America, Inc. “At the previous race, there were no
full-course caution situations to allow us duck into the
pits for a couple quick gallons to make the two-hour,
30-minute distance. That dropped us to sixth at that
race.
“Today we had six caution periods. Andrew Aquilante
started the race and did a masterful job maintaining his
position and staying out of trouble. He was running
fifth when he pitted late into a full-course yellow
situation and turned the car over to Kris.
“At this point we had only one hour, 12 minutes of race
time remaining, so with another yellow, we’d be in good
shape on gas. The problem was, though,” Joe Aquilante
added, “that Kris had been in fifth place when the
yellow flags came out, but by the time the pit stop was
done, Kris lost a couple spots getting out of the
crowded pits, and was 14th when the race
re-started on lap 50. He was only able to scramble back
to seventh.”
The Subaru Legacy’s mechanical assets performed as
anticipated, though. “The turbocharged 2.5-liter boxer
engine was just what we needed to climb the hill on the
back side of the race track,” said Aquilante, “and the
symmetrical all-wheel drive system kept all four wheels
planted coming out of the ‘corkscrew’ sequence. We
really appreciate that Subaru has such an excellent and
capable platform for us in the Legacy.”
Aquilante added he felt another round of “competition
adjustments” would be forthcoming from Grand-Am
officials, in an ever-evolving effort to even the
competition.
Practice on the 1.52-mile Lime Rock Park circuit near
Lakeville, Conn., starts Friday at 10am ET, with
qualifying Saturday morning and the 2h30m race starting
Saturday at 2:30pm ET.
Sponsors for SRRT include Subaru Of America, Inc.,
Subaru Tecnica International (STI), Subaru Performance
Tuning (SPT), Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA),
VAC Motorsports, Automotive Racing Products, Hawk
Brakes, Rockland Standard Gear, Quarter Master, Ecutek,
Racing Radios, Lista, Rotary Lifts, Cusco, Carbonetic,
Mac Tools, Hella, Perrin, and Vedalo HD.
About SRRT Phoenix Racing
SRRT Phoenix LLC represents Subaru
of America’s road racing efforts in the Grand-Am KONI
Sports Car Challenge and is owned and managed by Joe
Aquilante of Phoenix Performance, Inc. The team’s 32,000
sq. ft. facility is in Phoenixville, Pa., 40 miles west
of Philadelphia, PA. Team drivers Kristian Skavnes and
Andrew Aquilante race a Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT spec.B. in
the Street Tuner class. For more information about the
team and the cars, call Joe Aquilante at (610) 482-0141,
or go to
www.phoenixperformanceinc.com.
Fans can visit the team’s website at
www.srrtphoenix.com