Landrum/Tryon’s Blitzen Benz Racing’s endurance road racing team placed third in the inaugural Memorial Day Weekend ChumpCar World Series 14-hour race.
The event was held at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., home of the Daytona 500, the Firecracker 400 and Rolex 24-Hour races. Daytona’s very fast 3.56-mile road course incorporates the NASCAR tri-oval superspeedway and an infield course.
Baby Blitzen, the Mercedes Benz 190E-based race car, during a leg driven by Rob Hall, posted the fastest lap of the race. About half the 117-car field finished a race made unusually grueling by occasional strong winds and rain from Tropical Storm Beryl.
Nearly all major manufacturers were represented, including Porsche, BMW, Mustang, Camaro, Nissan Z/SX, Mazda RX7/Miata, Honda/Acura, Toyota/MR2, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Saab and Audi. Race teams traveled to the “hallowed ground” of Daytona from as far away as California, the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Puerto Rico.
The Blitzen Benz Racing team consisted of drivers Warren Board and Jim Wright of Tryon, Rob Hall of Concord, N.C., Ned Gallaher of Asheville, N.C. and Mark Thomas of Waynesboro, Va. The crew chief was Rusty Tredinnick of Mills River, N.C. and the mechanic was Greg Pressley of Hendersonville, N.C.
The third-place finish at Daytona and fourth-place finishes at Road Atlanta in February and Virginia International Raceway in March secured an invitation for Blitzen Benz to participate in the ChumpCar World Series 2012 Regional Championship race in October at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The next race on the Blitzen Benz schedule will be a 24-hour endurance race at Virginia International Raceway on Aug. 11-12.
– article submitted by Warren Board