TRUECAR RACING COMPETES BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD IN UTAH AND BRAZIL
TRUECAR RACING PRESS RELEASE
This weekend, Katherine Legge races on unfamiliar turf in the Sao Paulo Indy 300; Shea Holbrook tackles U.S. turf at the PrivacyStar Utah Grand Prix.
- Alison Merion Padron Photography
SANTA MONICA,Calif., April 25, 2012 – Two members of the TrueCar Racing team will compete on opposite sides of the western hemisphere this weekend, tackling two very different kinds of tracks and unique sets of challenges. Shea Holbrook, racing in the Touring Car class of the Pirelli World Challenge Series, faces off in three races at the PrivacyStar Utah Grand Prix atMillerMotorsportsParkinTooele,Utah. Her teammate Katherine Legge will compete over 6000 miles away in round four of the IZOD IndyCar Series Sao Paulo Indy 300 inSao Paulo,Brazil.
While both women share the experience of being a female race car driver as part of TrueCar’s “Women Empowered” initiative – along with Ashley Freiberg,Verena Mei, Emilee Tominovich andShannon McIntosh– their weekends will be vastly different. Legge will be racing on a long, unfamiliar street circuit (most likely in the rain according to local forecasts) while Holbrook has to contend with a dusty road course located at such a high altitude that it will affect the power output of her car’s engine. Neither woman has raced at their respective venues.
“The cars will be affected by the altitude inUtah,” said Holbrook, driver of the #67 Shea Racing 2012 Honda Civic Si. “The entire field will feel the power loss but some of the turbocharged cars will have to make some tuning adjustments to make do with the thin air. Our car, being naturally aspirated, will not need any tuning. So it will save our team some time.”
Holbrook’s team has a slight advantage that could help them in the race for points – a backup car. The team will be using a brand-new 2012 Honda Civic Si that has not yet been raced. Although the car was complete by the time the series’ season opener took place inSt. Petersburg,Floridaa month ago, the team had no time to test and decided they would wait until the car was 100% race-ready. Thus, they still have last year’s car to use as a backup – a tried-and-true 2011 Honda Civic Si.
“This weekend could really make or break a lot of people in our class,” said Holbrook. “Since the first two races are back-to-back, if someone has an issue in the first race that they can’t fix in between the first and second race, they won’t be able to run the second race. If something happens, we’ll have our old car we can use and although we’ll get sent to the back of the grid if we bring it out, we still have a chance to compete for points.”
The Touring Car class will be running apart from the GT- and GTS-class cars this weekend, and will be utilizing the West Course of Miller Motorsports Park, which is a 2.2-mile, 13-turn asphalt track. They will share the grid with the new Touring Car B-spec class and thus will be the faster class of the three races.
Legge, driver of the No. 6 TrueCar Lotus Dallara DW12 faces a completely different set of circumstances. She’ll be dealing with a track she’s never raced at and possibly rain but the British driver focuses only on the positive. Legge also suffered from engine management issues during the previous race atLong Beachand although supplier Lotus and her team have been working to sort out any problems, the team had no test time between races (and has had less than a full day of it so far this season).
“The weather forecast doesn’t look so great – it looks like it will rain on Saturday and Sunday. I actually think that it will be good (for us) because the rain might even things out a bit. Obviously, with the engine issues we’ve been having it will be a bit of a struggle because the track has two massive long straights; one of them is nearly a mile long. I see our team being at a disadvantage there, but if it rains it might help us.”
Legge competes this Sunday, April 29th, on the Anhembi Circuit of the Sao Paulo Indy 300. The race will start at 11:00 a.m. EDT and will be televised live on the NBC Sports Network. Holbrook will drive in the Touring Car class of the Pirelli World Challenge at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. Holbrook runs three separate races over the course of the weekend – Rounds 3 to 5, with two of the races held back-to-back on Saturday, April 28 (8:50 a.m. MDT/10:50 a.m. EDT) and the third taking place on Sunday, April 29th at 11:15 am MDT/1:15 p.m. EDT. Broadcast coverage of the races will be streamed live over the internet at www.world-challengeTV.com.
TrueCar, Inc. is an online automotive information and communications platform focused on creating a better car buying experience for dealers and consumers. Consumers want a hassle-free car buying experience and dealers want high-quality sales velocity. TrueCar helps achieve these goals by providing unbiased market information on new car transactions and by supplying an online communications platform through which dealers and consumers can communicate with each other. TrueCar’s market-based information provides both consumers and dealers with an accurate and comprehensive understanding of what others actually paid recently for similar vehicles, both locally and nationally. TrueCar’s communications platform then allows informed, ready-to-buy consumers to communicate directly with participating dealers. Some of the nation’s largest and most well respected membership and service organizations rely on websites powered by TrueCar to help educate their members and customers who are in the automotive market. TrueCar is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, and has offices in San Francisco, CA, and Austin, TX. After experiencing dramatic growth since 2006, TrueCar is developing a suite of products and services centered on radical clarity through the comprehensive analysis of market data and information. TrueCar’s participating dealer partners have sold over 500,000 new vehicles to TrueCar users nationwide.
You can follow TrueCar on Twitter (@TrueCar) and become a fan of TrueCar on Facebook and Google+.
