For Immediate Release – May 29, 2004

Contact Kirk Knestis - kirk.knestis@evaluand.com

Greensboro, NC – a team of four part-time sports car racers has confirmed its entry for the Charge of the Headlight Brigade 13-hour endurance race, October 22-23 at Virginia International Raceway. Among races on the Atlantic coast, this Sports Car Club of America (SCCAŽ) event is shorter than only the celebrated 24-hours of Daytona in Florida, and will run around a 3.27-mile circuit, in all weather conditions and well into the night.

PhilsTireService.com Team GTI will be looking for victory in the Improved Touring B class. Cars in this category are essentially stock and this particular 1996 Volkswagen sport compact has few performance modifications beyond KONI racing struts, uprated suspension springs, and extreme-duty brake pads from Cobalt Friction Technologies.

Driving duties will be shared by car owner Kirk Knestis (Greensboro, NC), Southeast Honda Challenge and ITC standout Scott Giles (Leesburg, GA), past SCCAŽ Run-OffsŽ bronze medallist Greg Amy (Middletown, CT), and Northeast division IT journeyman Evan Webb (Elkridge, MD). These amateur racers have pooled their resources to tackle this event because it is simply not possible to go it alone on an operation of this magnitude. Driver Scott Giles’ sentiments reflect another motivation for joining the team, however: “I've always wanted to do a long distance event like this one, but I'm not crazy enough to subject my own racecar to that kind of abuse.”

The team anticipates that a trouble-free run will cover more than 900 miles at an average speed better than 70 mph. Drivers will take turns in the car, running stints approaching 2 hours in length, between which an all-volunteer pit crew will perform service as required. The more heavily loaded front tires – Toyo Proxes RA-1 race rubber from Phil’s Tire Service, in Haverstraw, NY – will be asked to go two stints before changing. Early-season testing suggests that they can expect to average 11mpg on the track, a surprisingly high figure under race conditions. Even at that, increasing gas prices have forced adjustments to the budget for the event.

The PhilsTireService.com team is documenting the season-long effort toward its endurance-racing debut at http://it2.evaluand.com/gti – a site that will be updated with text and images describing modifications to the car in collaboration with Bildon Motorsports, logistical preparations for the event, and stories of the team’s adventures during the race.

 

I've had a few conversations with Greg, and of course the rest of you, and I have to say - you all stand to 'tear the rook off the sucker'! Greg, at one point, took time out of his day to get me started down the right track with simple suspension questions. The rest of you all have been wonderful - and the best of luck to PhilsTireService.com!


Modified by ASteele2 at 11:50 PM 5/30/2004

 

^I'm with stupid

RJ - on the kr3w y0!

 

"Among races on the Atlantic coast..." <-- Qualifying language

 

oops

 

I'm really looking forward to this one. This can't possibly be anything but fun, and after just putting less than 1/3 that distance on my car this weekend I'll reiterate that I'm REALLY glad we'll be using Dr. Ks car for this little shindig.

There will be lots of thanks to lots of folks from this team in the coming months, but special recognition has to go to Phil for stepping wayyyy up to support this team. Its takes alot of rubber to run a 13 hour race, and Phil was right there for us. We'll never be able to thank him enough. He deserves any support our community can give him (and more).

To all those that have volunteered to crew... We'll thank you after the race. I wanna make sure you guys actually show up for work before I pitch the praise .