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August 6, 2006
Chevrolet’s Cobalt SS Supercharged won the Grand-Am Cup Series Street
Tuner (ST) class for the fifth race this season, this time at the 37th annual
Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières in Quebec.
Marc-Antoine Camirand and Dave Thilenius drove the Powell Motorsports /
Collision Craft Cobalt to a 3.696-second victory. For Camirand, who lives near
Trois-Rivières, the win was his seventh in his home town’s annual race festival
on the10-turn, 1.51-mile circuit, second highest among all drivers in the event’s
history.
"This is the second race this season Marc-Antoine has co-driven with Thilenius,
a GM Engineer," said team owner Phil Malgren. "Marc also drove one of our
Cobalts at Lime Rock and led part of the race, so we were pleased to have him
back with the team this weekend at his home track."
After eight of 10 races, Chevrolet leads the Manufacturers Championship
points chase by six over Acura and 22 over BMW. Acura and Honda teams won
the other three races.
Georgian Bay Motorsports / SCADAPack team drivers, Eric Curran and Jamie
Holtom, winners of four races this season, started the race with a nine-point
lead for the Drivers Championship over BMW drivers Don Salama and Will
Turner.
An 18th place finish, the result of mechanical problems after Holtom was hit by
another car on the first lap, caused him and Curran to lose their lead. They
now trail Salama and Turner by four points, and are tied with brothers Hugh
and Matt Plumb, whose Acura finished 3.696 seconds behind Camirand.
Team Cobalt entered seven cars – two each from the Georgian Bay, Team
Cobalt
California and the Powell/Collision Craft teams, and one from WTF Engineering.
“The Georgian Bay team has been our strongest team all season,” said GM
Performance Division’s Ken Wasmer, whose engineering team provides
technical support for all Cobalt SS Supercharged entrants in the Grand-Am
Cup Series, “but we’ve always strived to ensure all of our teams have the
same access to technology and information.
“That policy really paid off today, and we’re thrilled to see another Canadian-
based team, and a Canadian driver, lead the last 25 laps and win the only
Canadian race of the season,” he said.
Wasmer was not surprised that the big Driver and Manufacturer points leads
the Cobalt team had only 10 days ago, have come under such pressure. “The
Turner BMW 330i, Fenton Acura and the SpeedSource Mazda RX8 teams, as
well as the many other Acura RSX and TSX teams, are just as serious as we
are,” he said. “They have good cars and good drivers, just like we do.
“We benefited form their misfortunes early in the season and were able to gain
some ground on them. Street races usually result in a lot of impacts, and we
had our share today. But we’re proud that our cars had no problems traceable
to anything except these mishaps. The Cobalts themselves held up extremely
well,” he said.
With a 15-minute red flag session early in the race, followed by a 14-minute full-
course yellow period, Camirand and Thilenius averaged 54.729mph on the 10-
turn, 1.51-mile street circuit to win.
Jim Holtom and Daniel Colembie finished 12th in their Cobalt, losing the lead
when Holtom pitted under green flag conditions. VJ Mirzayian and Jack
Mardikian were 14th to top the Team Cobalt California effort, Eric Curran and
Jamie Holtom were 18th, Ed Magner and Tom Lepper finished 20th in Magner’s
WTF Engineering/Team Cobalt California car, Phil Malgren and Quebecois
Stefan Roy were 24th in the #06 Powell Motorsports/ Collision Craft entry, while
Brian Ortiz and Victor Gonzales qualified the #48 Team Cobalt California car in
11th place but were knocked out from an incident on the first lap of the race.
The next Grand-Am Cup series race will be Sept. 1 at the new Miller
Motorsports Park near Salt Lake City, Utah.
The GM Performance Division offers all Cobalt SS Supercharged entrants a
contingency program along with the engineering technical support currently
provided at every Grand-Am Cup race. The program awards contingency
money for every Top Five finish: $5,000 for a win, $3,000 for second, $2,000
for third, $1,000 for fourth and $500 for fifth place.
Engineered by GM Performance Division, the Cobalt SS Supercharged is the
most powerful and agile of the model line, with a suspension developed on
Germany’s famed Nurburgring race track and a 2.0-liter ECOTEC
Supercharged engine named among the industry’s 10-Best Engines for 2006
by the editors of Ward’s Communications.
GM Performance Division develops compelling, low volume, high-performance
production and specialty vehicles, including the 205 hp Chevrolet Cobalt SS
Supercharged, 395 hp Chevy Trailblazer SS and 400hp Chevy SSR; the 400
hp CTS-V, 469 hp STS-V and 443 hp XLR-V from the Cadillac V-Series; and
the 205 hp Saturn ION Red Line.
For additional information please visit the GM racing media site by clicking here.
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world’s largest automaker, has been
the global industry sales leader for 75 years. Founded in 1908, GM today
employs about 327,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in
Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. In 2005, 9.17
million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick,
Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab,
Saturn and Vauxhall. GM operates one of the world’s leading finance
companies, GMAC Financial Services, which offers automotive, residential and
commercial financing and insurance. GM’s OnStar subsidiary is the industry
leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on
GM can be found at www.gm.com.
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