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GRAND-AM: Booming Attendance at Barber Round
Written by: Grand-Am Communications   http://www.grand-am.com
07/22/2008 - 12:41 PM
Daytona Beach, Fla.
 
A big crowd defied Alabama's summer heat to take in the Rolex Series weekend, and were rewarded with a thrilling feature race. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

Record crowds at Barber Motorsports Park were on hand to witness the fourth-closest finish in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16, part of the three-day race weekend at the 2.3-mile track in outside Birmingham, Ala.

More than 41,000 people saw the Rolex Series, Grand-Am's KONI Challenge Series, the SunTrust MOTO-ST Series, Skip Barber National Series and the Ford Mustang Challenge for the Miller Cup over the weekend, setting record-high figures for attendance. Sunday's event was estimated at 21,000, the highest in the six-year history of the event. Friday's attendance was recorded at 5,500 people, while Saturday's attendance was recorded at 14,500. Last year's three-day estimate was around 37,000.

Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas won their season-leading sixth Rolex Series Daytona Prototype race of the season, as Pruett held off Darren Law to the checkered flag after a late-race restart. Pruett and Rojas, driving the No. 01 TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley, now hold a 60-point
lead in the point standings over defending series champions Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty. In GT, Nick Ham and Sylvain Tremblay earned their third win of the season, taking the No. 70 SpeedSource Mazdaspeed/Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8 to the checkered flag less than a minute over Dirk Werner and co-driver Bryce Miller in the No. 87 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3.

Saturday's crowd saw Joe Foster and Scott Maxwell pick up their second KONI Challenge Series Grand Sport (GS) victory of the season, one which was a home race victory for Atlanta's Foster and his Atlanta-based Hyper Sport team, in the No. 55 Hyper Sport Ford Mustang GT. Touring Sport Ducati took the overall victory in MOTO-ST, while Terry Borcheller won the Ford Mustang Challenge race.

The Rolex Series is back in action Friday, Aug. 1, at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The race will be shown on SPEED starting at 8 p.m. ET, and fans can follow along with the action throughout practice, qualifying and the two-hour race on www.grand-am.com.
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