Mazda Motorsports, Bomarito Looking For Home Track Advantage In Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix At Mazda Raceway

Please see attached press release, below is a text-only version.

Mazda Motorsports, Bomarito Looking For Home Track Advantage

In Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix At Mazda Raceway

JDC/Miller Motorsport Looks For Third PC Victory Of 2016

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (April 25, 2016) – There’s no place like home for Jonathan Bomarito. The native of Monterey, California will be looking to carry Mazda Motorsports’ momentum from the recent race at Long Beach to a strong finish in Sunday’s Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix powered by Mazda at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Coming off his best career finish in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype (P) class competition, Bomarito will join Tristan Nunez driving the No. 55 Mazda Prototype. The team finished fifth in the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach on April 16, one position behind teammates Joel Miller and Tom Long in the No. 70 Mazda Prototype.

The Prototype (P) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes will hold a two-hour race on the challenging 2.238-mile circuit at 11:15 a.m. PT on Sunday (live, FS1, 2 p.m. ET). The Prototype Challenge (PC) and GT Daytona (GTD) competitors then will take the green flag at 4:45 p.m. PT (live, FS2, 6:30 p.m. ET).

“It all matches up for this weekend,” said Bomarito, who attended Palma High School in nearby Salinas and was a driving instructor at Mazda Raceway for 10 years early in his career. “I love driving at Mazda Raceway – it’s a fun, flowing race track and very enjoyable from a driving perspective. Placing the Monterey Peninsula in the mix – it’s a beautiful place. Plus, I’ll have all my family and friends there watching. It all adds up to make it pretty special. Race car driving is a unique profession, and it’s fun to share that with everybody.”

The Mazda Prototypes face strong challenges from four Corvette DPs, a Honda-powered Ligier and the DeltaWing coupe.

Visit Florida Racing returns as defending race champions, albeit with a new driver lineup for 2016. Ryan Dalziel and Marc Goossens will share the No. 90 Corvette DP that won last year’s event. Ricky and Jordan Taylor are coming off a victory at Long Beach in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP. Action Express Racing returns with the same drivers in a two-car lineup, with 2014-15 Prototype champions Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa driving the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP, while Dane Cameron and Eric Curran share the No. 31 Whelen Engineering/Team Fox Corvette DP.

Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian fields the No. 60 Honda Ligier JS P2 for Ozz Negri and John Pew, while Sean Rayhall returns to join Katherine Legge in the No. 0 Panoz DeltaWing Racing coupe.

JDC/Miller Motorsports Looks For Third Victory Of 2016

JDC/Miller Motorsports takes confidence and momentum into Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. After opening the season by winning the Prototype Challenge (PC) class in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Misha Goikhberg and Stephen Simpson won at Long Beach in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Hi-Tide Boat Lifts/Red Line Oil ORECA FLM09 to take an eight-point lead in the championship standings.

“Right now, I think we are fairly confident,” Goikhberg said. “Confidence is a very finicky thing, and right now we have lots of it. I think our team has a strong believe that no matter what happens we’re going to figure it out in time. When it’s time to go, we’re going to be there ready to go into battle.”

Alex Popow and Renger van der Zande are second in the standings, 101-93, and are counting down consecutive finishes of fourth, third and second in the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport entry. Van der Zande scored his first of five career PC victories for the team at Mazda Raceway in 2014. Starworks also fields the No. 88 Popcorn Sutton ORECA for Ashley Freiberg and Mark Kvamme.

Sebring winners Colin Braun and Jon Bennett co-drive the No. 54 Flex-Box/Composite ORECA FLM09. They are looking to give CORE autosport its sixth consecutive PC team championship in combined WeatherTech Championship and ALMS competition.

Other PC entries include Tom Kimber-Smith and Robert Alon, who co-drive the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA FLM09 for the Fresno, California-based team, the No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports Top 1 Oil ORECA of Matt McMurry and Johnny Mowlem, and the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry of James French and Kyle Marcelli.

Practice for the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix powered by Mazda begins at 8:45 a.m. PT on Friday, April 29, with qualifying on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. PT. The event also features the IMSA Continental SportsCar Challenge, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama and Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo.

Contact:
Nate Siebens
Senior Manager, IMSA Communications

(386) 310-6568

nsiebens