Alegra Motorsports Claims Rolex 24 GT Class Victory...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 28, 2007) -- In a 24-hour battle of speed, weather, fatigue and the largest single class to compete in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Scooter Gabel, Jean-Francois Dumoulin, Carlos de Quesada and Marc Basseng overcame them all, claiming the GT victory in the 45th anniversary of North America’s premier endurance race in the No. 22 Alegra Motorsports/Fiorano Racing Porsche GT3. Overcoming an early race incident that saw the Gabel’s No. 22 machine slide off-course and make heavy contact with the tire barrier in Turn 1 and capitalizing on misfortune from the race-leading No. 85 Farnbacher Loles Porsche GT3 in the race’s 23rd hour, the Florida-based team won by a slim, 7.072-second margin. The decisive moment of the race came with a little more than 90 minutes remaining, when Dirk Werner was forced to pull his No. 85 Porsche down pit road with a lingering oil leak, opening the door for the Alegra/Fiorano team, as Dumoulin crossed the stripe just ahead of Paul Edwards, who debuted the new No. 07 Banner Racing Pontiac GXP.R. "There were so many good cars out there," said Dumoulin, a 2004 Rolex 24 SGS class winner. "We needed to be quick without doing too much harm to the car. We were able to keep our head down and stay ahead of them. It was a lot of fun." The No. 22 car only led the final 48 laps in the of the race, but fast and efficient pit crew members, coupled with persistent and consistent drivers, completed the "underdog" story. "You always have to believe you can win in racing," said Gabel. "I thought the odds were stacked heavily against us, with the problems we had in testing. We didn’t have a solid set of data to get a good setup with. The GT class was huge and they were all good cars, and for us to come out on top, it’s a huge honor." Battling the proven Porsche fleets of TRG, Tafel Racing and Farnbacher Loles, the No. 22 machine flew under the radar heading into Daytona. And with 41 GT machines taking the green flag--the single-most class entries to start the Rolex 24 in the race’s 45-year history--it was easy to get lost in the shuffle. "This is the biggest success of my career," said Basseng. "This is a great series, and for us German guys, we love coming here because we all want this watch. The win definitely feels good." "This team has been working so hard this off-season and I couldn’t be happier for them," said de Quesada. "We had a little incident early in the race that put us five laps down, but we knew that if we continued to focus on what we could control and kept turning out good laps, we’d have a pretty good chance." Edwards finished second in the No. 07 machine, co-driving with Kelly Collins, Andy Pilgrim and Johnny O’Connell. Banner Racing fielded a pair of Pontiac GXP.Rs in the Rolex 24, and although lacking the straight-line speed of the Porsches, handled remarkably through Daytona’s infield road course. Jim Lowe, Jim Pace, Johannes van Overbeek and Ralf Kelleners finished third in the No. 64 TRG Porsche GT3, followed by Banner Racing’s second entry, the No. 06 Pontiac GXP.R, driven by Leighton Reese and Tim Lewis Jr., with help from Edwards and O’Connell. The No. 70 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 rounded out the top five, with drivers Sylvain Tremblay, Nick Ham, David Haskell and Randy Pobst. Germany’s Wolf Henzler took the lead from polesitter Patrick Huisman in Turn 1 of the opening lap, and led the first 29 circuits aboard the No. 74 Tafel Racing Porsche GT3. Alongside co-drivers Jim Tafel, Eric Lux and Dominick Farnbacher (113 laps led), Henzler and the No. 74 machine looked like a strong bet in the early going. The 2006 GT class runner-up led 83 of the first 88 laps. Mechanical issues during the night hours, however, forced the machine into the garage for extensive repairs, seemingly dashing the team’s hopes at a victory. Much of the damage was caused when Lux locked the brakes in Turn 1 and was forced to limp the car around the track with front-left damage. Tafel Racing’s misfortune handed the class lead to the No. 85 machine, which led throughout most of the night hours. It looked as though the Farnbacher driver lineup of Werner, Jörg Hardt, Pierre Ehret and Leh Keen, would run away with the race until the late oil leak problems. Hardt led a race-high 208 laps and Werner, who did the majority of the driving for the team, spent 56 laps on the point position. The Banner Racing and Alegra/Fiorano entries used mid-race caution periods to make up time lost to the faster No. 85 car. A total of 13 drivers exchanged the lead 25 times and the winning team covered more than 2,228 miles in the 626 laps around the 3.56-mile, 14 turn speedway road course. The machines of the Rolex Series enjoy a little more than a month before Round 2 of the 2007 championship, when the Daytona Prototypes and GT machines travel south of the border to contest a 400 km race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

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Porsche factory werks driver Marc Basseng to join Alegra Motorsports for Daytona 24 hour race ...

Alegra Motorsports is thrilled to have Porsche factory werks driver Marc Basseng join the team for the Daytona 24 hour. " Marc’s extensive experience and knowledge test driving every 997 race car for Weissach will be a great plus for our team " says Theo Papadopoulos Operations Manager for Alegra. " His input on areas where changes could benefit us will obviously be key for our preparation " Theo says. He also points out that the GT class competion in this years race is going be a real challenge. " With Banner Racing, Speedsource and Blackforest Racing having a lot of factory support , we realize all the Porsche teams will have our work cut out for us. But Daytona could bring a suprize winner in GT .... lets see." Green flag drops Saturday January 27 at 1:30 pm.

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ECU tuning and Sport Exhaust now availble for 997 Turbo !!

Alegra Motorsports finished 6th at Homestead and still remain 2nd in points in GT class.

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