Colin Braun Records His First NASCAR Camping World Truck Win at Michigan

Speed Secrets has worked with Colin since he made the move from karts to cars at the age of 12. At Michigan International Speedway on June 13^th, Colin posted perhaps the most significant win of his rising career. Starting 12^th, Colin fought off a late race charge from Kyle Busch to record the win. Colin is the reigning NASCAR Truck 2008 Rookie of the Year winner and currently sits 11^th in points.

Ross Bentley, while at Le Mans with Team Seattle spoke with Colin by cell phone during the victory circle celebrations. Later, Ross said this about Colin’s win:  “I even predicted it earlier this week… I just knew he was going to win this one – I could hear it in his

voice.”

Team Seattle Completes 24 Hours of Le Mans and raises over $250,000 for the Seattle Children’s Hospital

Ross Bentley travelled to Le Mans to coach for Team Seattle. The team consisted of drivers Don Kitch, Patrick Dempsey and Joe Foster running a Ferrari F430GT prepared by Advanced Engineering of Italy.  From Team Seattle’s website: “What makes a 9th place finish so amazing is that Team Seattle was the only all-rookie (to Le Mans) group. Just finishing the race is a major achievement. And Team Seattle had the only all-American driver group and was the only charity based organization in the race.” The team raised over $250,000 for the Infant Cardiac Care Unit at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Elsewhere in our news section, we have posted Ross’ account of his experience at Le Mans, where he found out travelling with an internationally recognized celebrity adds some strange twists to a day at the track!

Update on Liam Kenney in Germany – ADAC Formula Masters at Hockenheim and Nurburgring

Liam had two races in three weekends over in Germany in ADAC Formel Masters series. The first race weekend was in conjunction with the Nurburgring 24 hour race where Liam had one of those weekends that you would rather forget as a driver. After qualifying 6^th and 4^th respectfully he had a 8^th and 11^th at the end of the weekend. Liam learned a hard lesson about the driving style needed to run on the other side of the world and applied that knowledge at the next race at Hockenheim two weekends later. Hockenheim was a much better weekend as Liam qualified 4^th and 7^th for the two races. He recorded a 13^th in the first race after struggling with the decision to go to a rain or dry setup and picking the wrong one. In the second race Liam finally had all his luck in one barrel and received a hard fought 6^th place result to end the long 4 week trip. Liam is next up at Lausitzring (Eurospeedway) on July 3-5, 2009 so stay tuned.

Andrew Novich – TDI Cup Rounds 3 and 4 – Miller and Mid Ohio

Speed Secrets is working with Andrew this season as he makes the transition from karts to cars in the VW Jetta TDI Cup series. At Miller, Andrew qualified 13^th and ran as high as 9^th before the close racing resulted in an incident which put him back to 15^th place. Andrew is making steady progress as was recently shown by his performance at Mid Ohio. Although hampered by a five position penalty applied to his qualifying position, he stormed through the field to finish 10^th after starting 22^nd.  Andrew has shown he has some serious racecraft and continues to work on his skills in practice and qualifying in a series of hard-charging young drivers where track time is extremely limited and the field is usually covered by a second or two. Andrew continues to adapt well to the front wheel drive chassis and the momentum style of driving necessary with the Jetta. We expect his development to continue and even better results to follow.  

Jim Hargrove Continues His All-Out Assault on the 2009 SCCA Runoffs

After dominating his class at SCCA National events at Portland and Seattle, Jim made the cross country trip to the June Sprints at Road America to gain valuable experience in anticipation of the Runoffs in September. While the plan was to use the event to develop the GT Lites Honda Civic for Road America and the team made a number of changes throughout the weekend, Jim ran strong and brought the car home to a 4^th in class finish in his first time at the historic track.

Jim has worked periodically with Speed Secrets for three years. This year he has committed to full time coaching and his driving has never been better. This combined with his cars now dependable reliability has made him a serious contender for the Runoffs this season.

Hudson Champlain Region PCA Hosts Another Successful “Cups and Saucers” event at Watkins Glen Featuring Speed Secrets Seminars and In-car Coaching

The beautiful Watkins Glen circuit was again the site of this year’s annual Cups and Saucers event hosted by the Hudson Champlain Region PCA. On May 13^th and 14^th the Porsches took to the track for two days of lapping with coaching available from Speed Secrets. Seminars were presented each morning, open to all drivers who signed up for coaching and in-car coaching sessions ran full time both days. All available coaching spots were sold out and the event was, once again a great success. Thanks to all for their hard work on this event, especially to Patti Torre-Dobush for having Speed Secrets there again!