Team Salvo - News
PR1 Motorsports: Rolex 24 At Daytona 8-Hour Report

Daytona Beach, Fla. (January 24, 2009) -- The plan for the PR1 Motorsports
team going into the Rolex 24 at Daytona was to stay consistent and knock out
laps throughout the race, with an eye on picking up the pace after daylight
on Sunday.

After eight hours of racing, that plan hasn't changed -- though the gap to
the leaders has widened without the fault of any driver in the No. 32
Miracle Sealants Pontiac GXP.R.

With 16 hours remaining in the twice-around-the-clock race, drivers Jeff
Westphal (San Carlos, Calif.), Thomas Merrill (Salinas, Calif.), Al Salvo
(Arcadia, Calif.) and Mike Forest (Edmonton, Alberta) sit 18th in the GT
class, 29 laps behind the leader.

Almost all of those laps were lost during the third hour of the race. Salvo
had just taken over driving duties from Merrill and was running 13th among
GT cars under a full-course caution. Following the restart, Salvo was
entering turn three when a Daytona Prototype hit Salvo in the right rear
corner. The contact damaged the suspension on the Miracle Sealants Pontiac
and also sent the No. 45 Daytona Prototype of Bill Lester to pit lane for
repairs.

Salvo limped the Pontiac to the garage, where the PR1 crew made the
necessary repairs in just over 40 minutes.

"That's not the way you want to start your first Grand-Am race," Salvo said.
"I don't know who was in the DP car, but they came from nowhere. I had
looked in my mirror and went for the apex, and it was just a big bang.

"The PR1 team is just phenomenal, though. Not only were they able to put the
Miracle Sealants Pontiac back together quickly, but being with team for a
while, I know they did it right. I felt comfortable with it and knew I could
push it hard."

The beginning of the race went according to plan for PR1. Westphal started
in 21st and climbed as high as 15th in the opening 1 hour, 55-minutes before
passing the car to Merrill.

"The Miracle Sealants Pontiac is running great," Westphal said following his
stint. "Its pretty tough out there with the DP's coming in all over the
place, but we did the best we could for the time being. It was a lot harder
than I thought out there. As the sun goes down, its tough to see. I had a
little issue with the seat and my back, so I'm going to work that out before
my next stint so it's not an issue."

Merrill capitalized on Westphal's successes, steadily climbing to 13th
before passing the car to Salvo for his unfortunate incident. Merrill made
his run while dealing with the challenge of a setting sun over Daytona's
3.56-mile road course.

"The challenge during my stint was dealing with the sun as it went down, the
glare was pretty bad," Merrill said. "It was hard to tell who was coming
from behind, and I had a couple of close calls. I was surprised at the lack
of yellows (early in the race), everyone is doing a good job of behaving
themselves."

Salvo was able to recover from his incident enough to stabilize the PR1
Pontiac, and passed to Forest to double stint the first segment of the race
run fully under the cover of darkness. Forest moved from 41st overall to
36th, but not without some challenges.

"My stint definitely didn't go as planned," Forest said. "There was a
problem with the shift-without-lift system, and it would lurch the car on
the exit of every corner. I lost a bit of confidence, but as we sorted that
out it put some comfort back in the car and we turned some decent laps.
Hopefully we've got it back on track and plug away.

"We've got plenty of time left, that's for sure. I don't think we're too
bad. In the middle of the night it will cool off, and we'll see how the car
reacts to that."

Follow the progress of PR1 Motorsports to the checkered flag live on SPEED,
who will resume coverage at 6 a.m. ET (3 a.m. PT) until the checkered flag
at 3:30 p.m. ET (12:30 PT).