Thursday, September 07, 2006 LAKEVILLE, Conn. - A bunch of handshakes and congratulations need to go around thanks to the recent successes of Race Series drivers, school grads and instructors. At the top of the list is
Mark Patterson. A longtime driver in the Regional, National and Masters National series, he took his first Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Daytona Prototype win at Miller Motorsports Park. He and co-driver
Oswaldo Negri (a former Barber Dodge coach and test driver) took their No. 60 Flight Options/Net App Lexus Riley DP to the front in the 9-Hour Discount Tire Sunchaser with about an hour to go to beat the Playboy/Uniden Ford Crawford of
Memo Gidley, Guy Cosmo and Michael McDowell by less than 3 seconds. Great stuff…
This is Mark Patterson, who’s been racing with Skip Barber since the late 1990s. Patterson, 54, will be back in the R/T 2000s soon, at the Road Atlanta Southern Series opener November 17-19.
Click here for more detail on the Patterson/Negri win In the same race, the GT win was taken by
Andy Lally and
Spencer Pumpelly driving the TRG/F1 Air Pontiac GTO.R. Andy is the '06 GT champion. Well done! Also at Miller was the penultimate round of the Grand-Am Cup championship. Former SBRS instructor
Boris Said co-drove to victory with Anders Hainer in the Turner Notorsport BMW M3. One more thing: Patterson’s DP win at Miller clinched the 2006 Jim Trueman Award, which recognizes the top sportsman driver in the Daytona Prototype class. Patterson finished sixth in the final Rolex Points Standings. Way to go, Mark, what a great season in your second year of prototype competition. By the way… Of the top 25 drivers in the final 2006 Rolex Sports Car drivers championship, more than half – 13, to be exact – are Skip Barber folks. We think that’s pretty impressive… We also want to congratulate
Marco Andretti on his becoming the youngest ever winner in the IRL, with his smart drive at Infineon (Sears Point) Raceway. The 2003 Eastern/2003-2004 Southern/2004 National champion set three goals at the start of the year and reached them all: Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, IRL Rookie of the Year, and winning an IRL race. Way to go, Marco!
Patterson and Negri celebrate the win in VC.
Patterson singing at the banquet. Earplugs were provided at the door...
Patterson, seen near the back of the car, is about to get in for one of his stints.
2006 Grand-Am GT champion Andy Lally ''in the helmet.''
Marco Andretti wowed 'em at Infineon.
Rick Roso
