Park Place Motorsports This Weekend at the Rolex 24 at Daytona

Posted By: Park Place Porsche Dallas - 2013-01-23

Park Place Motorsports Team Report
Round 1 of 12 – The 51st Rolex 24 At Daytona

PATRICK LONG, SPENCER PUMPELLY, PATRICK LINDSEY, JASON HART, DANIEL GRAEFF

Broadcast: Live TV on SPEED: 2 to 10 p.m. CST this Saturday, January 26th, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, January 27th. Live streaming video at SPEED.com from 10 p.m. Saturday until 8 a.m. Sunday; Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90 live radio coverage in segments. Check local listings.

Track: 24-hour GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway (3.56-mile, 12-turn speedway road course).

Driver information and stats: Click to learn more

Notes of Interest:
- Coming off a highly successful Roar Before the 24 test days, during which it clocked the fastest GT-class lap of the Jan. 4-6 event, the No. 73 Racing4Research Porsche GT3 Cup entry for newly christened Park Place Motorsports (PPM) takes the stage for the first time this weekend at the 51st running of the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series traditional season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona.

- The powerful driver lineup for the No. 73 PPM Porsche is led by veteran Porsche drivers who are no strangers to victory lane at the Rolex 24 – Patrick Long (2009 GT winner) and Spencer Pumpelly (2006 and 2011 GT winner). They’ll share the driving duties with Patrick Lindsay, who has been key to the formation of the PPM team that opened its doors in early November, as well as Jason Hart and Daniel Graeff. It will be the first Rolex 24 appearance for Lindsey and Hart while Graeff, a member of the Children’s Tumor Foundation board of directors, will be making his fifth consecutive Rolex 24 start.

- PPM features a companion Rolex 24 entry this weekend in the form of the No. 72 Vess Energy Porsche GT3 Cup car for drivers Mike Vess, Jean-Francois Dumoulin, Mike Skeen, Grant Phipps and Chuck Cole. The No. 72 Porsche also completed a successful, workmanlike three-day test on the 3.56-mile, 12-turn Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway road course three weekends ago.

- Long, the 31-year-old veteran road racer and the only American factory Porsche driver, laid down a lap of 1 minute, 48.569 seconds at 118.045 mph during the Roar Before the 24 test that was fastest among 41 GT-class car-and-driver combinations that took part. Dumoulin, the veteran racer from Canada, clocked the best lap of the weekend in the No. 72 Vess Energy Porsche with a time of 1:51.989 at 114.440 mph.

- Long, who will be making his 10th Rolex 24 start and the 46th Rolex Series appearance of his career, is a three-time American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT2 champion (2005, 2009 and 2010) and winner of the 2009 Rolex 24 in a Porsche GT3. That victory completed Long’s cycle of winning each of sports car racing’s modern endurance classics as the California native has claimed victories in the 12 Hours of Sebring (2005), 24 Hours of Le Mans (2004 and 2007) and Petit Le Mans (2005, 2006 and 2007). Long’s 2009 Rolex 24 win came in the No. 67 TRG Porsche with co-drivers Jorg Bergmeister, Andy Lally, R.J. Valentine and Justin Marks.

- Pumpelly, who will be making his 14th Rolex 24 start, finished on the podium at the twice-around-the-clock endurance marathon four of the last five seasons. His 2006 GT-class win came in the No. 36 TPC Racing Porsche GT3 with co-drivers Randy Pobst, Michael Levitas and Ian Baas. Pumpelly’s 2011 win came in the No. 67 TRG Porsche GT3 with Lally, Wolf Henzler, Brendan Gaughan and Steven Bertheau.

- Lindsey is a 30-year-old racer who works on Wall Street by day and is coming off a solid 2012 season in the No. 73 Horton Autosports Porsche GT3 that featured six top-12 finishes in 11 outings in Rolex Series competition. He is the brother-in-law of John Horton, who engineers and oversees racing operations for all of Park Place Motorsports. Lindsey rose through NASA’s Time Trial Series and American Muscle Car Series ranks, as well as SCCA World Challenge campaigns with Horton Autosports in 2008 and 2009, en route to his 2010 debut in the Rolex Series.

- Hart, who was born into a Porsche racing family in Northern California 36 year ago, has been racing Porsches and countless other makes since his career started in 1995. Ready to race anything anywhere, his motorsports background includes ASCS Sprint Cars, USAC Midgets, go-karts, sports cars, vintage racing cars and even off-road vehicles, as the versatile driver scored a victory in the Class 4 division of the 2011 Baja 1000. He also serves as test driver for numerous auto manufacturers and is a successful driving coach and instructor.

- Graeff, who joined the Children’s Tumor Foundation in 2009 as co-driver of the annual Racing4Research entry at the Rolex 24, is a longtime music and food-industry executive who has certainly left his mark at Daytona the past four seasons. His best Rolex 24 finish of eighth came in 2011 in the No. 4 TRG Porsche GT3 with co-drivers Kenny Wallace, Ryan Eversley, Ron Yarab Jr., and Richard Zahn.

- The Children’s Tumor Foundation’s Racing4Research program utilizes auto racing as a vehicle to increase awareness of Neurofibromatosis (NF) and raise funds for research through corporate sponsorship, personal donations and individual fundraising by NF Heroes: children and adults from around the country who live with NF. The Racing4Research program offers children and families living with the disorder a uniquely empowering weekend and has raised more than $2 million since its inception in 2008. Donations to CTF Racing4Research can be made directly at www.Racing4Research.org.

- Last year’s Racing4Research effort at the Rolex 24 raised more than $600,000 as Graeff was joined by Eversley, Yarab and Justin Bell behind the wheel of the No. 4 eBay Motors/eBay Mobile/Quicken Loans/Racing4Research Porsche GT3 for TRG. This year’s Park Place Motorsports entry will carry the additional branding of several key partners.

- The No. 72 Vess Energy Porsche effort is spearheaded by Mike Vess, chairman and managing owner of Wichita, Kansas-based Vess Oil, a company he co-founded in 1979.

- Lead No. 72 Porsche driver Dumoulin is a three-time Rolex Series winner, capturing top SGS-class honors in 2004 Rolex 24 in the No. 91 Doncaster Racing Porsche GT3, the GT victory in 2007 Rolex 24 in the No. 22 Alegra Motorsports Porsche GT3, and an SRII-class win in 2001 in his hometown of Trois Rivieres, Quebec, in the No. 88 Porsche Haus Racing entry.

About Children’s Tumor Foundation/Racing4Research: Developed by the Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF), the Racing4Research (R4R) program utilizes competitive, professional auto racing as a vehicle to increase awareness of Neurofibromatosis (NUro-FIbro-muh-TOE-sis), or NF, and raise funds for research through corporate sponsorship, personal donations, and individual fundraising by NF Heroes: children and adults from around the country who live with neurofibromatosis. NF affects one in every 3,000 children, more than cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease combined, and can lead to a wide variety of complications, including blindness, bone abnormalities, cancer, deafness, disfigurement, learning disabilities and excruciating and disabling pain. The Racing4Research program offers children and families living with the disorder a uniquely empowering weekend, and has raised over $2 million dollars since its inception in 2008. Donations can be made at www.Racing4Research.org.

About Park Place Motorsports: Park Place Motorsports is an extension of Dallas-based Park Place Dealerships, which represents upscale manufacturers Porsche, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Lexus, Bentley, Maserati, Lotus, Rolls-Royce, Volvo and Smart. Park Place Motorsports augments the unparalleled attention its dealerships provide by offering customers a premium level of support in relation to their motorsports activities. Services include maintenance and repair, driver and racecar support, and parts engineering and distribution. These offerings are authentically promoted by Park Place Motorsports’ flagship GT team in the GRAND-AM Rolex