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E-mail: LindaKMansfield@cs.com
Gleason and Hand's BMW Gets as High as Fourth
Before Trouble Strikes Late in Sunday's
KONI Challenge Season Finale at VIR
ALTON, Va., Oct. 4 - The 2009 KONI Challenge season, which consisted of 11
very competitive races from January through October in the United States and
Canada, ended up being about 40 minutes too short for Turner Motorsport
co-drivers Chris Gleason and Joey Hand.
The pair's BMW M3 Coupe, which is sponsored in part by Gleason Financial,
was fourth around both the two-hour and three-hour mark in the four-hour
Bosch Engineering Octoberfest season finale Sunday at VIRginia International
Raceway. Unfortunately it suffered a mechanical problem just 40 minutes shy of
the checkered flag while Hand was running sixth, and it was forced to
retire. Gleason, of Johnstown, Pa., and Hand, of Sacramento, Calif., ended up
finishing 21st in GS in the 49-car event.
Gleason qualified 22nd and took the green flag in that position. He got a
great start and passed two cars on the first of the car's 90 trips around
the 3.27-mile, 17-turn road course near the Virginia/North Carolina border.
He was able to hold off Keith Carroll's No. 79 BMW until lap seven, and
spent a good portion of his stint running between Carroll and the No. 83 Porsche
of Scott Russell.
Russell finally got around him 40 minutes into the race on lap 19. Gleason
spent the next part of his stint trying to repass Russell while holding off
Jason Workman. He stayed out on the track during the first full-course
yellow, which flew from laps 23 through 25 in order to retrieve Chip Herr's
overheated Volkswagen Jetta in Turn 8. That savvy pit strategy helped, as
Gleason was up to sixth with 53 minutes elapsed.
The restart went smoothly on lap 25, but one of the event's eventual
winners, James Gue, passed him for sixth on lap 26 with an hour and 38 minutes
gone. He pitted under green with 28 laps and an hour and five minutes gone in
order to turn the car over to Hand.
That dropped the entry back to 22nd, but Hand started to chip away at the
field. He moved up to 15th on lap 48 with an hour and 47 minutes gone by
passing Scott Turner's Ford Mustang GT. He broke into the top 10 a minute
before the two-hour mark with 53 laps in the books. Other cars pitted at that
time, and on lap 55 Hand passed his sister car that Bill Auberlen was driving
to get fifth place.
The fourth-place driver at that point, Todd Lamb, then pitted, which put
Hand in fourth place four minutes after the midway point with 56 laps
completed. Hand then pitted under green, but the Turner Motorsport crew got him
back on the track quickly. He remained on the lead lap and he set the entry's
fastest lap of the race shortly thereafter when he ran a 2:04.215 for an
average speed of 94.771 miles per hour on lap 63 while he was trying to climb
back up from 11th after the stop.
Guy Cosmo pitted on lap 70 to give Hand eighth place back, and he then
concentrated on trying to pass Ryan Eversley. He got seventh on lap 77 with 2
hours and 48 minutes in the books when Eric Foss dropped from fifth to ninth,
and he got sixth two minutes later when he finally got around Eversley.
Charles Espenlaub then dropped from fifth to seventh, which vaulted Hand into
fourth place again one minute before the three-hour mark.
Things were looking great for the Turner Motorsport team with just 60
minutes remaining, because its cars were third (Bill Auberlen) and fourth (Hand)
at that point. The driver who went on to earn the series' driver
championship, Ken Wilden, got between them about four minutes later on lap 84. Hand
then slipped from fourth to seventh, but he was back in sixth on lap 87 with
three hours and 10 minutes gone when the second full-course yellow flew so a
wrecker could retrieve the stalled Honda Civic of Jamie Holtom.
Hand was only 4.888 seconds behind the leader, Gue, when the race restarted
with 90 laps complete. Unfortunately he was issued a stop-and-go penalty
for allegedly jumping the restart, and when he brought the car down pit lane
to serve the penalty it lost oil pressure and wasn't able to finish the
108-lap event.
This race isn't going to be televised, but more information, including the
official point standings, will be available on the Internet at grand-am.com.
Other Internet sites of interest include turnermotorsport.com,
konisportscarchallenge.com, gleasoninc.com and speedtv.com.
Gleason's post-race quote follows: "We didn't have the weekend we wanted,
but it was still a very good season. What happened today was that a line
came off the oil pump, which resulted in an engine failure.
"We had a little dispute with the officials before the race because at
first they said one driver couldn't drive over three hours in a four-hour race,
but then they clarified the rule and said that one driver couldn't drive
more than three consecutive hours in a four-hour race, which is a different
story.
"So we were executing our strategy. It wasn't important where we started
so we used qualifying as a practice session for our race set-up, with a full
tank of gas and everything.
"We had trouble all weekend getting the car to stick. It was sliding a
lot. The team worked hard and tried everything; springs, shocks, tires,
swaybars, just everything, but we never got it where we wanted it.
"We were dealing with it, but right at a restart the problem occurred. It
was a sad ending to a wonderful year. I want to thank Joey and Will and
everyone on the team for all their hard work. We had four podiums, including a
win, and that's a good year in anyone's book.
"Bill Auberlen and Matt Bell were in the top five today and Will Turner and
Paul Dalla Lana finished second in ST, so that was good for the team.
"We're looking forward to next year. Turner is building some new cars; one
is built already, and we'll be testing them in November. They'll have some
exciting plans to announce soon. There are a lot of exciting things planned
for the team for next year.
"We'll take a little time off, but before you know it, it will be the third
of January and time for the test at Daytona. So we'll be busy. Joey and I
will stay together in 2010, and we're looking forward to the new season!"