Spaude and Aquilante Score First Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge

Win for Subaru

Grand-Am Link

Millville, NJ. – May 12, 2012 – The pole-winning teams in both GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge classes completed clean sweeps in the B+ Heroes 200 presented by BCKSTGR at New Jersey Motorsports Park by going on to take their class victories.


Bret Spaude and Andrew Aquilante overcame two significant pit-road penalties to score their first Grand Sport (GS) victory in the No. 35 Subaru Road Racing Team Subaru WRX-STI, while Corey Fergus and Owen Trinkler converted Fergus’ Street Tuner (ST) pole into a class victory in the No. 197 Cruise America/Thor Motorcoach Honda Civic Si.


Despite Spaude’s pole-winning performance earlier in the day, the No. 35 did not lead the race until just nine laps to go. Aquilante battled all the way back from a stop-and-go penalty for contact in the pit lane right of way and a stop-and-go-plus-30-second penalty for hitting pit equipment to take the lead from Charles Espenlaub on Lap 75 of the 83-lap race. Aquilante then kept the field at bay on a restart with four laps remaining to win by 2.224 seconds over Espenlaub.


“This has been quite the three-year project to get here,” said Spaude of what was also Subaru’s first Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge GS class victory. “We’ve had a lot of trouble and making a Subaru work against the bigger V8 cars has been a challenge, but we’ve finally gotten there.”


Espenlaub and co-driver Charles Putman took second in the No. 48 Safecraft/OMP/Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3, and the result moved the 2010 GS co-champions into the points lead by eight points, 115-107, over Al Carter and Hugh Plumb, who finished fifth. Third place in GS went to Eric Curran and Lawson Aschenbach in the No. 01 CKS Autosport Chevrolet Camaro GS.R.


It was a comparatively easier race in ST for Fergus and Trinkler. Fergus led the first five laps during his opening stint from the class pole and Trinkler took the lead for good from Ryan Eversley when Eversley encountered a terminal mechanical problem on the front straight with 30 laps to go.


It was Trinkler’s third consecutive ST win at New Jersey Motorsports Park and came with his third different co-driver. Trinker won two years ago alongside Randy Smalley and took the ST win last year with Sarah Cattaneo as his co-driver.


“At this track, something clicks with us,” Trinkler said. “You’ve got to have a car that really turns well in the center of the corner here. We really work hard here on trying to get the car turn in the center of the corner. We did an awesome job today.”


Second in ST went to Daniel Rogers and Seth Thomas in the No. 82 CRC Brakleen/Johnstone Supply/unitedBMWonline/Escort BMW 328i, followed by Terry Borcheller and Mike LaMarra in the No. 23 WeatherTech/Tech Care BMW 128i.


With a 15th-place finish, No. 10 Infinity Audio/Kia Motors America/Rocky Tools Kia Forte Koup co-drivers Andy Lally and Nic Jonsson lead the ST driver standings by just two points over Pierre Kleinubing, who came home fifth with co-driver Glenn Bocchino in the No. 5 EMI/Mazda Mazdaspeed 3.


The B+ Heroes presented by BCKSTGR 200 will be televised on SPEED at 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 26.


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Qualifying Times

Saturday 5/12/2012 at 5:13pm

Meg Meyer · Congrats to Andrew and Bret! I've been watching Andrew since his SCCA National debut season, and his family races with us frequently! Great job!

Saturday 5/12/2012 at 5:32pm

Pete Pinigis · Windermere, Florida  · It's been a tough climb Team Subaru, congratulations on a well deserved win - enjoy the view from the summit!·

 Saturday 5/12/2012  at 8:38pm

Eric Sauers · Austin, Texas Congratulations Subaru Road Racing Team! I look forward to more podium finishes. Your greatest challenge still lies ahead. That is convincing the Subaru “home office” to include forged internals (at least the pistons) in the STI so your team and the enthusiast consumer at home can have reliability above 300 hp with bolt on mods with out having to dip into the short block. If Japan customers have them why can't we? The whole purpose of racing is to improve the breed, right?

Saturday 5/12/2012 at 5:55pm

Robert Go · Good job Subaru! I was there...

Sunday 5/13/2012 at 4:34am

Rick Moore · Chief Strategist at AllVette.net · Congrats, Andrew... Nice win. I'm sure everyone at Phoenix (including your Dad) is very proud of the accomplishment..

Monday 5/14/2012 at 3:22am

John Slane · Great Job guys! You made all us Suby drivers proud! WTG·


Sunday 5/13/2012  at 9:55pm

Henry Henroshí Func-tion · Bronx, New York · Subaru Power Baby!

Sunday 5/13/2012  at 10:40pm

Armond Ealey · Nice Win!

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