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Doran Racing Thursday Practice Report from PIR

PHOENIX, Sept. 8 - Matteo Bobbi and Fabrizio Gollin got their first look at
Phoenix International Raceway Thursday afternoon.  Later that night they took
their first laps around its 1.51-mile, 11-turn infield road course in Doran
Racing's Crown Royal Special Reserve DORAN JE4 Ford No. 77.

Their initial impressions were that the course is very challenging, citing
poor visibility in the infield portion of the track and slippery conditions all
around it. They also noted that it is the smallest track that the Rolex series
will visit this year.

In the first 45-minute practice session Thursday night the brilliant gold car
ended up 14th with a fastest lap of 59.315 (91.646 mph). In the second
45-minute practice session about an hour later Bobbi was in the car when it did a
59.360 (91.577 mph) to end up 16th for that session.

The second practice session was cut a little short when Brian Frisselle
crashed into the wall on the frontstretch.  He wasn't hurt but the Rx.com/Synergy
Racing DORAN JE4 BMW will have to be repaired before it can get back to turning
laps like the seventh-fastest time it had posted earlier in that session.

The fastest time of the day among the Daytona Prototypes was the 57.302
(94.866 mph) set in the second session by Oswaldo Negri Jr. in the Michael Shank
Racing No. 6.

The field is extremely close. In the first practice session the top 12 cars
were within 1 second of each other, and the top four cars were within one-tenth
of one second of each other. In the second session the top nine cars were
within 1 second of each other and only four-tenths of a second separated the top
three.

That's it for practice here.

The track schedule for Friday at PIR shows an autograph session at the
transporter from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m. followed by qualifying at 6:45 p.m. It's
Gollin's turn to qualify this time.

A special visitor at the track on Friday will be Didier Theys, fresh from his
victory last Sunday at the Nurburgring in Germany in the LMP2 division of the
Le Mans Endurance Series (LMES) with the Horag-Lista Lola Judd.

Saturday night's Rolex series race is at 7 p.m. local time, with tape-delayed
coverage on SPEED Sunday at 4 p.m. Eastern.