Team Seattle-The Heart of Racing finished sixth in GTD in this afternoon’s running of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America.

Ian James (Phoenix, Ariz) had the wheel of the No. 23 Team Seattle-The Heart of Racing Porsche for the 1:15 p.m. CT start. James kept the blue Porsche up in the GTD pack through two early caution periods. Turning the Porsche over to Mario Farnbacher (Ansbach, Germany) on lap 24 he returned to the fight in third place. Showing a lot of early speed he pitted on lap 41 for gas and tires. The Alex Job Racing crew performed a flawless pit stop getting Farnbacher back into the race in second position. As the race progressed the team had difficulty keeping the pace in the last quarter of the race and dropped to sixth at the checkered.

“I got in the car under the caution and returned behind the BMW,” Farnbacher said. “I couldn’t run his pace. A few laps in I began to struggle with my left front tire. I had to slow down as my tire would not have lasted. I didn’t have a lot of front grip in the car today. I was able to run behind the BMW in second, but then the caution periods would eliminate my gap. On the longer runs I couldn’t hold the pace and just kept losing positions. A tough day after running up front.”
 
James put in a good first stint.

“We proved that we had the pace early,” James said. “The car is good under short runs. We have trouble holding the pace over a long run. The car was ok for me. It wasn’t quite as good as yesterday because today was cooler. The team had some very good pit stops this afternoon and gave us great support all weekend.”

Alex Job, team owner, likes the promise of the team.

“We ran 75% of the race really strong,” Job said. “We were running in the top three almost all race. Ian and Mario really have to drive the car hard throughout the race to keep the pace of the GT3 cars. That costs us when it comes down to crunch time that decides the finishing order.”