Monterey, Calif. (23 September 2017) – It was a promising day at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for TeamTGM when the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge staged Round 9 of the 10-race championship on Saturday. Hugh Plumb and Guy Cosmo combined to run in podium contention throughout the entire four-hour endurance race with a podium finish in sight as the laps waned down.
Plumb opened the race from the second row in the No. 4 Camp Boggy Creek / JKTG Foundation Porsche Cayman GT4 MR after posting the third fastest time in qualifying on Friday. With strategy key to the four-hour enduro, the team opted to keep Plumb in the car for two hours and fifty minutes as he persevered through 98 laps around the 2.238-mile undulating circuit all while maintaining position at the sharp end of the field.
“Even though I was in the car for nearly three hours, my stint was largely uneventful,” said Plumb. “Our car was running really great. We had really great pace throughout the entire race and it put us in podium contention. The few yellows that we had fell our way and allowed us to pit when we needed to. We finally showed and proved ourselves as front runners and as a team that can comfortably run in the front of the field. I can't thank Ted Giovanis and the entire crew enough for all of the hard work that they constantly put in each weekend.”
With flawless pit stops from the TeamTGM crew and perfect strategy calls from the pit box, the team looked well on its way to a podium result as Cosmo anchored the team to the finish. Cosmo moved up front fifth in the order to third, where he challenged for the runner-up spot.
As he battled for the second position, contact was made which saw the second place McLaren spin and the TeamTGM Porsche Cayman GT4 MR continue on. Despite ultimately catching the race leader on the final lap and crossing the checkered flag just three-tenths behind, the podium result was not meant to be. The No. 4 Porsche machine was deemed to have caused the spin and received a penalty for the contact as the provisional race results saw the team credited a ninth place finish.
“It was a phenomenal effort after a really difficult year,” offered Cosmo. “It was not only nice to have a good race, but twice of a good race with it being four hours long. We were up front the whole time and Hugh (Plumb) did an amazing job. I felt bad we left him out there for three hours, but that's just the way the strategy worked. We were debating it, but at the time we needed to make that call. He's obviously in extremely great condition and it didn't faze him. I just kept chipping away and hitting my marks to make it up to the top three. At the end there, I just couldn't get the car slowed enough and his (the McLaren’s) tires were falling off so he slowed further up on entry and it just caught me off guard. I feel terrible for them because they had an amazing race. My apologies to them for sure.”
Though the end result did not reflect the team’s race potential, team driver and owner Ted Giovanis was proud of TeamTGM’s performance.
“Overall it was a great day for us as a team,” said Giovanis. “We ran up front all day long. The team executed perfectly on the pit stops, Hugh (Plumb) and Guy (Cosmo) drove great all day long. Unfortunately, there was a little contact there at the end of the race through some hard fought racing and we just didn’t get that end result today. But I think we showed that we’re here to run up front and that we can contend for race wins. We’re going to Road Atlanta which is the team’s home track for the last race and hopefully all the pieces will fall in place there for us in our home race.”
The season-finale IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge event will take place at the team’s home track of Road Atlanta on October 6.
The Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca 240 will be televised on FS1 – Sunday, October 1 at 5:00 PM ET.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Conlin
Sunday Group Management
julie@sundaymanagement.com
