Duno, Lammers Battle to Fifth in Brumos Porsche 250
CITGO
Racing Team earns third top-five of season
Daytona Beach, FL (July 1, 2005) .The #2 CITGO Racing Team with co-drivers
Milka Duno and Jan Lammers battled to a fifth-place finish in the Brumos
Porsche 250 at the Daytona International Speedway on Thursday evening June
30th. The strong finish was the third top-five finish of the 2005 Grand
American Rolex Sports Car Series season for the Denver, North Carolina based
Howard-Boss Motorsports Team.
The Brumos Porsche 250 was the seventh race on the Rolex Sports Car Series
schedule for 2005 and marked the half-way point of the season. With their
fifth at Daytona, the #2 CITGO Racing Team now shows one win
(Mont-Tremblant, May 21st), three top-five, and four top-ten finishes thus
far in 2005. The "regular" driving duo for the #2 CITGO Pontiac Crawford,
Andy Wallace and Duno, finished 9th at Homestead and 4th at Fontana.
Wallace, Duno, and Lammers drove in the victory at Mont-Tremblant. The
Brumos Porsche 250 was the first race for the Duno-Lammers pairing this
season.
After two practice sessions on Thursday morning, qualifying was scheduled
for early afternoon at the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway. Milka
Duno was selected to qualify the #2 CITGO Pontiac Crawford and responded
with a fast lap of 1:50.892 / 115.572 mph. Her speed would place her 20th on
the starting grid for the 70-lap, 250-mile event.
After qualifying, a typical Florida afternoon thunderstorm pelted the
speedway. However, Mother Nature did take a break and the race began under
dry weather conditions. The high-banked "speedway" portion of the Daytona
International Speedway was dry, but there were sections of the infield road
course that had selected "slick spots".
Duno drove the first stint of the Brumos Porsche 250 in the #2 CITGO Pontiac
Crawford until a full course caution was displayed on lap 22. Duno brought
the CITGO entry to the pits for fuel, tires, and a driver change. Jan
Lammers took the controls and began his stint in the car.
With teams employing different race strategy as far as fuel mileage and pit
stops, the running order shuffled throughout the race. And, the CITGO Racing
Team knew that they would have to work their race strategy to take advantage
of their potent Pontiac Crawford.
The veteran road racer Lammers worked his way through race traffic and began
to climb in the running order. A timely caution helped the CITGO Team
strategy and put them back on the lead lap. From that point, it was a matter
of taking advantage of every opportunity and gaining positions through the
field. The result was a hard-fought fifth-place finish for the #2 CITGO
Team.
"I'm very happy with our top-five finish," Duno commented. "We started the
race with the #2 Pontiac Crawford in twentieth and finished fifth - which is
amazing. My thanks to my teammate Jan (Lammers) for driving very hard and
very well. It was great to have Tony (Stewart) racing with us again and it's
unfortunate that he and Andy (Wallace) experienced a problem with the heat
exchanger that took them out of contention. Many thanks to the crew for
their hard work and to CITGO for their support in fielding two very
competitive efforts here at Daytona."
"The track was really tricky early in the race," Lammers added. "This CITGO
Pontiac Crawford was an awesome car tonight. It was a top three car, but we
just ran out of laps. If we could have gotten one more caution to bunch the
field, I believe we could have had a podium finish. This car was that good.
Thanks to everyone on this team for a superb effort."
The next race for the #2 CITGO Pontiac Crawford and the Rolex Sports Car
Series is the Porsche 250 at Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham,
Alabama on Sunday, July 31st.
CITGO, based in Houston, Texas, is a refiner, transporter and marketer of
transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals, refined waxes, asphalt and
other industrial products. The company is owned by PDV America, Inc.,
an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.,
the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. For more
information on CITGO visit www.citgo.com .
Milka is currently featured in Pontiac's largest ever Spanish language
advertising campaign launching an all-new sports sedan - the Pontiac G6.
Pontiac is a division of General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and markets
the Bonneville, GTO, Grand Prix, Grand Am, G6, Vibe and Sunfire. In 2003,
Pontiac sold more than 475,000 vehicles, ranking third among GM divisions in
total sales. 2004/2005 will see Pontiac launch an exciting new range of
vehicles including the Montana SV6, G6 coupe, G6 convertible and the
Solstice roadster. More information on Pontiac and its products can be found
at www.pontiac.com . Information in Spanish
can be found atwww.pontiac.com/sp .
For additional information on Milka and Andy please visit www.milkaduno.com or www.andywallace.com ,
respectively. For more information on the Rolex
Sports Car Series log on to www.grandamerican.com .
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