Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, AL (April 8) – Following Round 2 of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge at the Circuit of the Americas in which their car was excluded from competition due to a ‘technical non-compliance’ caused by an error while the car was being built in England, racer/extreme adventurer Nick Mancuso and the Multimatic Motorsports team rebounded in Round 3 at Barber Motorsports Park to qualify 5th and finish in the top-10.
“We had a podium car, but circumstances seemed determined to keep us from showing our true potential,” said Mancuso. “I never turned a lap during the promoter test session on Wednesday, and on Thursday we only got a couple of laps on a damp track, so we were way behind the curve going into qualifying. Fortunately, the Multimatic Motorsports team worked hard and gave me a car with a really good setup and we were able to put the car fifth on the starting grid.”
After the usual door-banging in the first turn, the race began to settle down and the #16 Aston Martin Vantage proved to have the speed to run at the front. After dropping back to 6th at the start, Mancuso moved up to 4th, and then to 3rd, which he held for most of his stint. When the first caution came out, the team gambled and stayed out, but the way the subsequent yellow flags fell, he was forced to pit under green.
“It was a long-tough stint because I was on older tires and the guys behind me were all on fresh rubber,” said Mancuso. “In the second half of the race, there were quite a number of yellows, so everyone got to pit and that pretty well threw our strategy out the window. We were gambling right from the start and knew that we’d either wind up on the podium or finish just inside the top-10. Our non-race at COTA hurt us bad in the points championship, so we’ll be gambling like this all season long hoping that it works for us more often than not. We have a car that is definitely capable of running at the front, so it’s only a matter of time before we wind up on the podium where we belong.”
The race will air on SPEED Saturday, April 13 at 2:00 pm ET. The next race on the schedule, Round 4, takes place April 18-20 at Road Atlanta, a circuit Mancuso has competed at before, but not for several years.
“Road Atlanta is a real driver’s track and I expect we’ll do well there,” says Mancuso. “Not having run there recently is a little bit of a handicap, but the Multimatic team has done well there in the past and has a good setup for the cars, so I’m not concerned. It’s a fast track, and we have a fast car, so we’ll be going into the weekend with a lot of confidence.”
About Nick Mancuso
Nick Mancuso is one of the most interesting, and accomplished drivers in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. In addition to his racing activities, he was inducted into the Cum Laude Society in 2004 and in 2005 he was made a member of the National Honor Society and chosen as a National Merit Scholar before graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2009. He is a black belt in Shotokan Karate and an ‘extreme adventurer’ with hobbies that include spearfishing, Krav Maga (an Israeli martial art), skydiving and capturing/photographing reptiles in the wild. He began racing in 2006, winning numerous races in SCCA Regional Sports 2000 competition. Mancuso joined Multimatic Motorsports in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge for the 2013 season after having helped the team develop their factory-backed Ford Focus ST-R racecar in 2012.
About Multimatic Motorsports
Multimatic Motorsports is a leading motorsports organization that is the competition arm of Multimatic Engineering, one of Canada’s largest and most successful engineering organizations. Multimatic Motorsports has a rich racing history, having captured major international wins such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP675 class in 2000, the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona Prototype class in 2003 and the 12 Hours of Sebring GT2 class in 2006. Multimatic Motorsports programs include car design, engineering, testing and development, track support and turn-key competition management.
About the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge
Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge cars are often purchased directly from the showroom floor with only minimal racing modifications allowed to enhance safety and performance. Two classes of race cars compete on the track at the same time during Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge—Street Tuner (ST) and Grand Sport (GS)—with drivers competing for top honors in their specified class, as well as the overall win. Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge cars are classified by weight, engine size and model. Fields of 80+ cars are common.
For additional information, please visit http://www.nickmancusoracing.com.
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