WATKINS GLEN, NY (June 6, 2009) -- The Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen is one of the cornerstone events on the Rolex Sports Car Series schedule, with over 40 years of racing at the fabled upstate New York facility. Campaigning the AMA-liveried No. 09 Porsche V8-Coyote combination with Guy Cosmo, Antonio Garcia, and Scott Russell entered as drivers, Spirit of Daytona Racing was looking to be a part of that rich history with a strong finish in the 2009 running of the event, but the team’s day was cut short after transmission issues sidelined the effort.
Cosmo, who qualified the black and gold Daytona Prototype on the 7th row, had moved up into the top ten before the race had even reached the one hour mark. But unfortunately, the campaign was halted as Cosmo rolled the car back behind the wall after losing drive.
“I was glad that this happened in a place where I was able to get back to the pits at least and not have to be stranded out there on course,” said Cosmo. “I just lost drive and I’m sure the team will sort out what exactly when wrong, but I think it was transmission-related. This is really disappointing because we were all set to just set a good pace and keep putting the laps in and putting ourselves in a position for a strong finish at the end. But at least we are not done for the weekend!”
Indeed, the weekend is not over for the team, as the newest member of the racing family, an all-new built Coyote chassis mated to the Porsche-based V8 powerplant, will hit the track in testing on Sunday. The test is the first full day of testing for the newly completed machine, which the team is looking forward to developing in advance of deploying it into Rolex Sports Car Series race action.
“Today didn’t go at all as we were hoping it would,” said team owner Troy Flis. “This car has been bullet proof through the years, so this was obviously a surprise for us to have this failure. While we would have liked to get back out there, now we’ll just make the most of this extra time to prepare the (new chassis) number 90 for tomorrow. It’s early days with that car, but we’re really looking forward to learning as much as we can with it. This race result is really tough to take, but at least we can come back to the track tomorrow and get to work on the new car so that’s the positive we can take out of today.”
Spirit of Daytona Racing will test the all-new No. 90 on Sunday, and will race again in two weeks at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.