Subaru Racing Team Drivers Climb Points Charts
- Aquilante, Skavnes now third
in Driver Championship points -
Phoenixville, PA – June 5, 2009
Subaru Road Racing Team (SRRT) co-drivers Andrew
Aquilante and Kristian Skavnes vaulted to third place in
the Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge series Driver
Championship points today, following a fourth place
finish at Watkins Glen International.
The duo races a Subaru Legacy 2.5GT spec.B. Subaru is
one of nine car manufacturers who go head-to-head on the
race tracks in the series’ Street-Tuner class.
“Of course we’d like to have finished higher,” said team
owner Joe Aquilante, “but we led the race, and the
Subaru was still capable of turning laps that were
faster than our qualifying speeds late into the race.”
Joe 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 KONI Challenge races in
2007 at Lime Rock and both 2007-08 at the Mid-Ohio
Sports Car Course. The car races in the Street Tuner
class, the larger of the two classes in the series.
Andrew Aquilante, Chester Springs, Pa., qualified the
#111 Subaru 5th quickest with a 93.220mph
effort. By lap 31, even on a damp track, the 21-year old
was able to lap the 3.4-mile road course close to
7/10ths of a second quicker than he had qualified,
moving to as high as second place before turning the
wheel over to co-driver Kristian Skavnes, Sparta, N.J.,
for the run to the finish.
“The race was two-and-a-half hours,” said Aquilante,
“which meant we’d have to pit twice for gas since we can
only go 68 minutes on a tank of gas at race speeds. But
there were enough situations to bring out the safety car
during my stint, which slowed down the pace, that we
were able to run 34 laps, which got us past halfway in
terms of time. That enabled Kris to race to the finish
and not worry about fuel.”
“In fact,” Skavnes noted, “the best chance I had to use
Subaru’s Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive system was on lap
50 just after I’d taken the lead. I slid off the track
but kept my foot in the throttle and after a pretty wild
ride parallel to the track, was able to return back onto
the racing surface.” The off-road excursion, however,
dropped him to fifth place, but he regained fourth with
five minutes to go.
The race was televised and will air on SPEED TV June 14
at 2p ET.
The team’s next race is June 19-21 at the Mid-Ohio
Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio.
“Mid-Ohio has traditionally been a race course where our
team has seen consistent success,” said James Han,
motorsports marketing manager for Subaru of America,
Inc. “We’ve won there in 2007 on a dry track and 2008 in
a sudden downpour.”
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
http://www.phoenixperformanceinc.com.
Fans can visit the team’s website at
www.srrtphoenix.com