Grand-Am

Utah: Memo Gidley preview

Three for the Road - Doran Drivers Team Up for MMP After a remarkable run of top-10 finishes during the 2008 season with a 2-car team, Doran Racing will focus all its energies on a single-car, three driver effort for this weekend's 2008 Rolex ...

Published: Sep 17, 2008, 10:04 PM

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Three for the Road - Doran Drivers Team Up for MMP

After a remarkable run of top-10 finishes during the 2008 season with a 2-car team, Doran Racing will focus all its energies on a single-car, three driver effort for this weekend's 2008 Rolex series season-ending SunRichGourmet1000.com at Miller Motorsports Park. At the controls of the #77 Kodak Doran/Dallara Ford will be regular co-drivers Memo Gidley and Brad Jaeger, as well as Burt Frisselle, who co-drove the team's #47 CDOC/Brach's Candy entry. Heading into the season finale, the Doran Racing team has compiled a record of eleven top-10 finishes, eight of them in a row.

"I'm really looking forward to the final race at Miller because I've had a lot of success there in the past, including a second-place finish in 2006," says Gidley. "It was also our highlight last year with the updated Doran, we qualified 6th and ran third for the opening stints of the race. Now we have the new Dallara bodywork to go with it...Im very excitied. And having Burt Frisselle join Brad and I in the car makes it a really strong driver lineup that gives us the best chance to finish out the 2008 season with a win."

Gidley, the widely respected American driver who was born in La Paz, Mexico and now makes his home in Novato, California, has made a name for himself as one of the most committed drivers in the paddock, driving and winning in everything from karts to Indy Cars and stock cars to prototypes. His co-driver, Brad Jaeger is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt University where he was a member of their Formula SAE team, has a racing resume that includes karting, Sports 2000, Skip Barber, F2000, Star Mazda and the Indy Pro Series.

"I used to think that Miller was a dusty track, but after our experience in the last race at New Jersey, it'll be a walk in the park," says Jaeger. "Most of the tracks we ran in 2008 were either brand-new to me, of, if I had raced there it was in an open-wheel car. But I ran my first Daytona Prototype race there in 2007 with the Doran Racing team, and I think that experience will be useful. I'm excited about our driver lineup for the race, and for our chances at a really good finish."

Sharing the driving duties with Gidley and Jaeger will be Burt Frisselle, who has been racing Daytona Prototypes in the Rolex Series since 2004, including a podium finish in his first-ever start in the series. He has scored top-10 and top-5 finishes in each of his four seasons of Rolex competition.

"I'm excited to be racing at Miller Motorsports Park because it's a real driver's track and I think that plays to the strengths of Memo, Brand and I," says Frisselle. "I've raced there twice before and scored a top-5 finish, so I feel confident that we can wind up on a high note. Its been a great season and I'm happy to have been part of the growth the team has gone through. We're already hard at work on next season, and expect to have some exciting announcements in the next couple of months."

The #77 Kodak Daytona Prototype that the Doran Racing team has been campaigning throughout the 2008 Rolex Series season is a Doran chassis fitted with Dallara bodywork featuring enhanced aerodynamics and increased downforce. For most of the season, Doran Racing also fielded a second car, the #47 CDOC/Brach's Candy Dallara co-driven by Burt Frisselle and Ricky Taylor. The #47 car made its debut in Mexico City and ran its final race of the season last weekend in the Armed Forces 250 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. Both cars are powered by 500 horsepower Roush-Yates Ford V-8 engines.

Doran Enterprises is Dallara's official spare parts distributor and approved repair center for the Grand-Am Rolex Series. In addition, Doran Designs will fabricate certain special parts for the marque. Doran Racing has a successful history of working with Dallara and won the Daytona 24 Hours in 2002 with a Dallara Sportscar LMP1. While Doran Racing has prepared and fielded race cars in a wide variety of series for many years, from Indy cars to NASCAR trucks, the Lebanon, Ohio-based team is particularly noted for its successes in sports car endurance racing, including being the first and only team in U.S. history to win the 24 Hours at Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Watkins Glen Six-Hour race in the same year (1998).

The final event on the 2008 Rolex Series schedule is the SunRichGourmet.com 1000 at Miller Motorsports Park. The driving duo of Memo Gidley and Brad Jaeger will be joined for the endurance event by Burt Frisselle. On trace activities begin with a promoter test day Thursday, September 18.

-credit: memogidley.com

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