Grand-Am

SCC: VIR II: TRG preview

TRG Heads for 2008 Grand-Am KONI Challenge Finale at VIR Two-Car Team Looking for Victory in for Six-Hour Challenge No. 39 and 41 Porsches PETALUMA, Calif. - After an impressive podium finish at Miller Motorsports Park, the two-car TRG Grand-Am ...

Edited: Dec 21, 2009, 5:26 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

TRG Heads for 2008 Grand-Am KONI Challenge Finale at VIR

Two-Car Team Looking for Victory in for Six-Hour Challenge No. 39 and 41 Porsches PETALUMA, Calif. - After an impressive podium finish at Miller Motorsports Park, the two-car TRG Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series team heads for Virginia International Raceway and Sunday's season-ending Bosch-Engineering Six Hours race.

It is the longest event on the 10-race KONI Challenge schedule and TRG's driver lineup for its Porsche 997s will be altered slightly owing to the race's length. In the No. 41 Carlsen Porsche/Cohen Financial/Wolf-Tec Inc./www.WTInc.com/Ludwig-Motorsports Porsche 997 will be full-time driver Scott Schroeder, as well as both Peter Ludwig and Andy Lally. Schroeder previously shared the car with either Ludwig or Lally for the first nine races this season, but the six-hour race will see the trio of drivers sharing the No. 41 Porsche together.

The No. 39 Carlsen Porsche/The DigiTrust Group/Adam's Polishes/Fox River Coffee Porsche 997 will feature the same driver lineup it has throughout the 2008 campaign with Duncan Ende and Spencer Pumpelly sharing the driving duties. Both cars compete in the KONI Challenge Grand Sport (GS) class, which will race on Sunday at the Bosch Engineering Twin Six Hours; one day after the Street Tuner (ST) class wraps up its season.

"I feel great about our chances to close out the 2008 KONI Challenge season with a victory," said TRG owner Kevin Buckler. "The last race at Miller Motorsports Park provided the most recent example of our team's capabilities, and I believe that either one of our cars can win at any time. If we can avoid some of the bad luck we've had at different times this season, there's no reason why we can't finish the season in Victory Circle."

In Round 9 at Miller Motorsports Park, Schroeder qualified second and led the most laps in the race before turning the car over to Lally, who was leading with less than a half hour remaining when a mechanical failure ended the day for the No. 41 team. At the same time, Ende and Pumpelly charged all the way through the field to finish second in the No. 39 Porsche despite the fact that Ende surrendered his third-place starting spot for an unscheduled pit stop to replace a fan belt just as the field took the green flag to start the race.

All told, the No. 39 team has finished four of nine races inside the top 10, including season-best performances of second at Lime Rock and at Miller Motorsports Park. The No. 41 team owns three top 10s of its own, highlighted by a victory for Lally and Schroeder at Iowa Speedway in a race that Schroeder started from the pole position for the first time in his KONI Challenge career.

Ende is the highest-ranked TRG driver heading into the season finale at VIR. He is currently 10th in the championship with 172 points, one point ahead of Lally, who holds down 11th in the driver standings. Pumpelly occupies 15th in the driver standings with 148 points, followed by Schroeder in 17th with 138 points. Ludwig is 29th with 84 points, despite the fact that he has competed in only 75 percent of the season's races.

The weekend schedule at VIR will see the teams on course for practice and qualifying on Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4. The green flag will drop on Sunday's six-hour season finale at 11:00 a.m. ET.

-credit: trg

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Bob Stallings Racing 2008 banquet report

Next article SCC: VIR II: Season finale preview

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

George Russell on F1 title loss: 'This year won't break me'

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

1 h

George Russell on F1 title loss: 'This year won't break me'

Fernando Alonso doubles down on poor F1 driving standards: "We all know who we're talking about"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

1 h

Fernando Alonso doubles down on poor F1 driving standards: "We all know who we're talking about"

How Spanish engineering and Alex Palou brought IndyCar to Barcelona

Feature

IndyCar

Feature

Indy IndyCar 1 h

How Spanish engineering and Alex Palou brought IndyCar to Barcelona

F1 Mexico GP: Friday schedule, weather forecast and how to watch

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

3 h

F1 Mexico GP: Friday schedule, weather forecast and how to watch

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts