7th place finish for Car No.41 at Barber
James Gue, Leh Keen and the crew behind the Team Seattle/Dempsey Racing/JG Sport car No.41 overcame major adversities to finish 7th in the ‘Porsche 250’ at Barber Motorsports Park this weekend.
After a great qualifying run by James Gue, the team was set to start 3rd on the grid but a ride height infraction bumped them to the back of the grid. The cause was later identified as lower than expected tire pressures due to the tires not getting up to temperature properly in a dramatically shortened qualifying session.
At the start of the race the team decided to take a calculated gamble and bring Gue in on the first lap to take care of the mandatory first pit stop within the first 45 minutes rule. Gue then drove a magnificent first two stints and despite niggling concerns with the transmission got the car well into the top 10 before handing over to Leh with around an hour to go. Keen commented that it was Gue’s first stint that got them into a potential podium position “I have to say that James did a really good coming up the field. What we were really worried about was coming up from behind in the pack and in the end it was his performance that got us the result we did.”
After just a few laps, a full course yellow bunched the field up and Keen found himself in 5th place with a full tank of fuel, almost fresh tires, and 50minutes of race time remaining. At the re-start the GT class saw some of the best racing of the season so far and after one of the passing moves of the day, Keen made his way up to 3rd. It was during the fight for 2nd place that car No.41 was involved in a ‘bump and run’ from a DP car which resulted in Leh having to make an unscheduled pit stop with a flat tire. “Everything was looking really good but outside in Turn 2 there was a Daytona Prototype that ran out of patience and came in on me,” Keen said. “It slammed me pretty hard and the entire alignment of the car was trashed and it got the back tire”.
Keen re-joined the race in 10th place and fought his way back to finish 7th in the race. While the result wasn’t what the team had hoped for, Keen still feels that the car has the potential to well in future races commenting “it looks like we are generally a podium car at every race now and that is good to see”.
Despite the lower than expected finish, one of the positives that can be taken from this, and any race, is that car No.41 continues to raise money for Seattle Children’s Hospital. John Graham from JG Sport comments “we feel very fortunate to have the driver team we have. James and Leh continue to bring more attention to the Team Seattle/Dempsey Racing car. Keen also recognizes this commenting “I want to thank Global Diving and we still raised money for Team Seattle this weekend, and that is something to be happy about.” Supporters of the cause can donate at anytime on the donation page.
The team will move on to round 4 of the Rolex Grand-Am ‘Bosch Engineering 250’ at VIR in two weeks. Keep up to date with team activity on Team Seattle’s Facebook page.
To read the full Dempsey Racing press release click here.
