On My Mind: Georgia's Own Sean Rayhall To Race at Petit Le Mans
Rising Star Asked by Starworks Motorsport to Pilot Prototype in TUDOR Championship Finale
Braselton, Georgia : September 30, 2015 : For the second consecutive event, Sean Rayhall has been asked to pilot the No. 88 Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09-Chevrolet in TUDOR United SportsCar Championship Prototype Challenge (PC) class competition. Winston, Georgia’s Rayhall will fight for class honors with co-drivers John Falb (Las Vegas, Nevada) and Scott Mayer (Franklin, Wisconsin). The 18th-Annual Petit Le Mans Powered by Mazda, a 10-hour endurance race at Braselton, Georgia’s Road Atlanta, will be held on October 3. On-track activity begins on Thursday, October 1.
Recent History :
The historic 2.54-mile, 12-turn road course is Rayhall’s “home track”. Despite his young age, the ultra-quick circuit has proven successful for the 20-year old. Rayhall has numerous victories in other series and finished seventh here last year in this event after the car failed to take the checkered flag.
Due to his performance in the PC class with longtime team, 8Star Motorsports, Starworks team owner Peter Baron asked the 20-year-old to join his program again this weekend. The combination was quick at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) on September 19. However, an accident early in the weekend kept the team from making the start. The Starworks Motorsport program made repairs to the ORECA chassis since, and will be attempting to end the season with a podium at Road Atlanta.
While this weekend will close out the North American sports car season, Rayhall put the open wheel season to rest on September 12-13. He closed his rookie year of Indy Light Series Presented by Cooper Tires competition with back-to-back top-four finishes at the Indy Lights Grand Prix presented by Cooper Tires and Powered by Mazda in Monterey, California. Rayhall finished fourth from a sixth-place start on Saturday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and followed that with a second-place result in Sunday’s 100-mile race driving the No. 8 8Star Motorsports Bass Egg Machine with Silver Arrow Technologies Dallara-Mazda. Rayhall earned two race wins and six top-five finishes in eight event weekends of racing in the Verizon IndyCar Series feeder program.
Details :
Official TUDOR Championship practice begins at 11:10 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) on Thursday, October 1. A second session will take place the same day at 3:25 p.m. with a third practice, the traditional two-hour “night practice” at 7:30 p.m. Friday will see a fourth open session for all classes at 10:05 a.m. followed by PC class qualifying at 4:10 p.m. A twenty-minute warm-up will precede the main event at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning. The 10-hour Petit Le Mans takes the green flag on Saturday, October 3 at 11:10 a.m. ET.
FOX Sports 2 will broadcast the majority of the 10-hour endurance race starting at 11 a.m. ET. The broadcast then turns to IMSA.com for the hours from noon until 2:30 p.m. before FOX 2 takes it back until 7:00 p.m. The network is pulled away then so the race will be on IMSA.com until 8:30 p.m. The final hour of the 2015 season will play out live on FOX Sports 2. IMSA.com will provide audio coverage of every on-track lap, including practice and qualifying while video streaming of qualifying will be available on the IMSA web site beginning at 3:35 p.m., Friday, September 18. The weekend’s activities can be followed on Twitter with the hash tag #PLM.
Quotes from Sean Rayhall :
About Racing At Road Atlanta: “Any race at Road Atlanta is a race I want to be in. That is especially true of the Petit Le Mans. This is the biggest race at my home track and I was worried I wouldn’t have a shot at it this year. Despite being another late call, I know we have a shot at winning the PC battle. The Starworks guys and I really clicked at Austin. We had the issue on track that kept us from racing but, as a team, we are going to attack this weekend’s race. This is one of the highlight events of the year for sports car racing and a win here would be an incredible way to go into the off-season.”
About Sean Rayhall :
Sean Rayhall, 20, is from Winston, Georgia. Starting in go-karts at the age of seven, Rayhall’s resume to-date is an impressive list of “youngest ever” to: win a formula car race in North America, win the Skip Barber Series and win a Skip Barber National event. He has competed and won on road courses and ovals in open wheel, prototypes and GT cars earning the 2013 IMSA Cooper Tire Prototype Lites Championship. In 2015, he secured two Indy Lights wins – the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – in his rookie season. The success garnered him a test day with Chip Ganassi Racing running times competitive with Scott Dixon, recently crowned for the fourth time as Verizon IndyCar Series Champion, in Dixon’s own Dallara-Chevrolet.
For more on Sean Rayhall, visit his personal web site at www.SeanRayhall.com, follow him on Twitter at @SeanRayhall and like him on Facebook at Sean.Rayhall.
To learn about Starworks Motorsport click on www.starworksmotorsport.com .
Visit Sean’s personal partners to learn more about the people that support this rising talent: Bass Egg, www.bassegg.com, and Silver Arrow Technologies, www.silverarrowtech.com .
About The TUDOR United SportsCar Championship :
The TUDOR United SportsCar Championship is the premier sports car and endurance racing series in North America. Most races feature two (2) styles of cars, Prototype and GT (Grand Touring). Each style of car has two (2) classes, Pro and Pro-Am, meaning there are four (4) classes of racing on track together, each with their own battle for the lead.
About The Prototype Challenge (PC) Class :
The Prototype Challenge (PC) class is a spec class featuring open-cockpit race cars and technology such as a carbon fiber chassis, carbon brakes and sequential gearbox.
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