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You can't keep a good team down. As anyone in auto racing will tell you, there are many challenges to be met. And they are not always ones faced by the drivers in the heat of competition. Sometimes, just getting a new race car on track can be quite a project. Take Villaconn's third BMW Z3 Coupe for example.
Ever since the announced expansion of Villaconn Motorsports for the 2001 Grand Am Cup, the team has been touting their three car effort. At Daytona and Homestead, however, only two BMWs appeared. While the Red and Yellow team cars were racing, Villaconn's race shop crew were back in Philadelphia trying to breathe life into the Black team's Coupe. The challenge with the number #38 BMW (now affectionately known as "Frankenstein" for having been built from the parts of various dead BMWs) was beginning with a bare shell instead of converting an existing Coupe. Simply put, the computers weren't talking to each other and "Frankenstein" wouldn't start.
That's all been corrected and the team is happy to report that "Frankenstein" is indeed alive. For the Phoenix round of the Grand Am Cup, you'll see the Urrea Tools-sponsored #38 BMW Z3 Coupe of Gregory White/Ray Shaffer joining the #36 HMS Z3 Coupe of Al Villamil/Matt Connolly and the #34 HMS BMW of Homestead runners-up, Jeff Trask/Bransen Patch.
Now the team is concentrating on finishing the details on their third challenger with plans to test the car before sending the transporter to Arizona for the April 18-20th event. "Every once in a while I'll see Frankie sitting in the corner of the shop and I'll fire it up just to be sure I'm not dreaming" comments team manager, Ricky Marrero. "Paranoid? Naah!"
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