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| BRUMOS PORSCHE 250 AT DAYTONA ON JULY 4 TO YIELD 250,000 FANS |
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After the Brumos victory in the Rolex 24, Grand-Am officials have changed the rules three times for Porsche-powered prototypes. That latest rules change should be beneficial to Porsche teams, as the maximum RPM limit has been raised to 9,200.
"The lower RPMs really hurt us," Bernhard said. "We were not able to reach maximum speed. We would run out of power, especially on the straights and in uphill corners. We have been doing the best we can with what we had."
The Penske Porsche is still looking for its highly-anticipated first victory of the season. Bernard and Dumas have finished on the podium twice with a worst finish of only seventh.
Despite the lack of a win, they are in the thick of the driver's championship points battle, currently ranking fourth with 162 points, and only 13 behind Lexus Riley pilots Scott Pruett (Auburn, CA) and Memo Rojas (Mexico), who have won the last two races.
"We have high expectations for the rest of the season," Bernhard said. "Our goal is to win."
Porsche Motorsport customer teams competing in the Acxiom GT class have even stronger aspirations. The duo of Leh Keen (Charleston, SC) and Dirk Werner (Germany) seek their
third straight victory in the #87 Farnbacher Loles Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entry and strengthen their hold on both the driver and team championships.
Now halfway through the season, the situation in the GT class looks extremely positive for
Porsche. With the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup of Farnbacher Loles Racing, Dirk Werner (Germany) and Leh Keen (USA) have already secured wins at Millville, Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio and
thanks to these hard-fought successes they now hold the points' lead in the drivers'
championship. Works drivers Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) and Patrick Long (USA) netted another victory for Porsche at the Daytona 24 hour race teaming with the TRG team, giving Porsche the manufacturers points lead as well.
Just how well Porsches are performing in this racing segment has been underlined by Spencer Pumpelly (USA) with the 911 GT3 Cup of the TRG team with second places at Daytona and Millville as well as the performance of Farnbacher Loles pilot Eric Lux (USA), who came third (with Porsche works driver Wolf Henzler) in Millville and Watkins Glen - strongly
backing up victories of their Porsche teammates.
Keen and Werner have grown accustomed to winning in the Acxiom GT class. They have won three of the first six races and have a 16-point lead over Pontiac drivers Kelly Collins and Paul Edwards.
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