Grand-Am

Mid-Ohio: SAMAX/Doncaster Racing qualifying report

SAMAX/ Doncaster Racing will start Saturday's Rolex Sports Car Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course from ninth on the GT grid. Dave Lacey qualified the No. 17 SAMAX/ Doncaster Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car that he shares with Greg Wilkins, posting a ...

Edited: Jun 24, 2006, 4:13 AM

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SAMAX/ Doncaster Racing will start Saturday's Rolex Sports Car Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course from ninth on the GT grid. Dave Lacey qualified the No. 17 SAMAX/ Doncaster Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car that he shares with Greg Wilkins, posting a fast lap of one minute 29.904 seconds on the 2.258-mile road course (90.416 mph). The qualifying session was the team's first on the new track surface in dry conditions.

"The first few laps were just learning because we hadn't put any dry laps in yet, so I was just getting used to the new asphalt. It's great! The track is very smooth," Lacey said. "Once we got the line down, we started picking away on the numbers and steadily moved the needle forward. It's too bad we didn't have the knowledge on the first lap when the tires were good. But we're not miles off the pace and I think we're pretty close on our setup."

Goldfinger

Greg Wilkins will cram an international trip between races next week. He will return to his home in Toronto on June 25, fly to London, England, for a board meeting on June 28, then back overnight to compete in the June 29 Rolex Series race in Daytona Beach, Fla. The trip will include an interesting highlight -- a visit to a gold vault. Wilkins is chief executive officer of Barrick Gold Corporation, the biggest gold-mining company in the world.

"We're members of the World Gold Council and I'm on the board," he explained. "The council created a gold certificate, which is backed by gold, so just to be sure that that gold is in fact being put away, members of the council board are going to inspect all of the physical gold stacked in nice neat bars, just like the James Bond movie, Goldfinger."

Wilkins will also do double duty when he arrives in Daytona, driving the No. 17 Porsche and keeping an eye on his son Mark, who will drive his first race in a Daytona Prototype.

racing wishes

Dave Lacey is hard at work organizing the 14th annual Children's Wish Race Day at Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville, Ont. As Ontario chairman of The Children's Wish Foundation of Canada, he initiated the program to grant wishes to children who are seriously ill. The day also raises funds for the foundation, which is the biggest of its kind in Canada, with 15,000 wishes granted during the past 20 years.

"The idea is to get friends of racing to bring their race cars or their high-performance street cars out to the track. The day has two objectives: we give rides to Children's Wish families and we also charge the public for rides to raise funds. It's a great fun day that incorporates both racing and not-for-profit," Lacey said. "It's a good day for the kids and their families -- a day away from chemotherapy or hospitals or needles."

-samax-

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