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Doran Looks for Podium at Barber Lebanon, OH (July 15, 2008) - With half a dozen top-10 finishes so far in the 2008 season, Doran Racing's 2-car team of Daytona Prototypes heads for this weekend's Porsche 250 Presented by Bradley Arant at ...

Published: Jul 17, 2008, 10:34 PM

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Doran Looks for Podium at Barber

Lebanon, OH (July 15, 2008) - With half a dozen top-10 finishes so far in the 2008 season, Doran Racing's 2-car team of Daytona Prototypes heads for this weekend's Porsche 250 Presented by Bradley Arant at Barber Motorsports Park with their sights firmly set on a drama-free weekend culminating in a podium finish.

Despite suffering through contact between the two team cars early in the race, fueling problems and a drive-through penalty at the Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona three weeks ago, Doran Racing continued its streak of front-of-the-pack finishes with the #77 Kodak Doran/Dallara Ford co-driven by Memo Gidley and Brad Jaeger starting from 6th on the gird and finishing the 250-mile event in 6th-place while the #47 Doran Racing/CDOC Dallara Ford co-driven by Burt Frisselle and Ricky Taylor qualified 9th and finished 11th.

"I've had several good results at Barber in the past couple of years," says Gidley. "I finished on the podium there with the SunTrust team last year and with Finlay Motorsports in 2005, so I'm really looking forward to the race and we'll be pushing hard to get the Doran Kodak car into the top-3. The track has a decent amount of grip, the curbs are just the right size to let you be really aggressive and there are some good passing opportunities. I'm really looking forward to going back there."

"Barber Motorsports Park is an extremely fun and challenging track, especially Turn One which is a blind left-hander that kind of falls away and takes a lot of commitment - and a setup with lots of grip," says Jaeger. "I tested there for a couple of days in a Star Mazda car back in 2006 and raced at Barber with the Skip Barber series in 2003, but I can't wait to go there in our Kodak DP car."

Co-driving the #47 Doran Racing/CDOC Dallara Ford are 5-year Rolex Series veteran Burt Frisselle and Ricky Taylor, the 19 year-old son of Rolex Series champion Wayne Taylor. The Frisselle and Taylor drove their first race together at Mid-Ohio where Taylor qualified the car 7th in his first-ever visit to the track and the duo tip-toed through the carnage caused by torrential rain to bring the car home in 7th.

"We tested at Mid-Ohio after the last race and had the time to find out some things about the car that will be really helpful at Barber," says Frisselle, who has scored top-10 and top-5 finishes in each of his five seasons of Rolex Series competition. "I like the track and have had some success there over the years; I finished 4th in a GT race at Barber a couple of years ago, so I'm looking forward to the race and we're happy to have CDOC back on the car as our primary sponsor. The Doran team has been knocking on the door of a podium finish for several races now, and hopefully this will be the weekend where our two cars wind up battling it out right to the finish."

This will be Taylor's first race at Barber Motorsports Park, but he has tested there in a SunTrust DP from his father's team. And his ability - demonstrated so clearly at Mid-Ohio -- to learn new tracks quickly, combined with Frisselle's experience, makes this driving pair contenders every time the green flag drops.

"I haven't actually run a race there, but I tested at Barber Motorsports Park last year in the Sun Trust car, so I know my way around the track," says Taylor, who finished second in the 2007 Skip Barber National Championship with two wins, five poles and five podiums. "It was originally designed for motorcycle racing, so it's a bit narrow for cars and there are a lot of turns which means that the most important thing will be to stay out of trouble and bring the car home."

The two cars the Doran Racing team will field at Daytona and throughout the 2008 Rolex Series season look the same, but are different underneath. The #47 car is all-Dallara, while the #77 car is a Doran chassis fitted with Dallara bodywork featuring enhanced aerodynamics and increased downforce. Both cars are powered by 500 horsepower Roush-Yates Ford V-8 engines.

-credit: memogidley.com

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