Shea Holbrook's Newly Expanded Team Starts 2013 Pirelli World Challenge Season Strong
- Jul 16, 2013
"I absolutely cherish this opportunity to operate our own racing team. It feels like it's been a long time coming!" Holbrook remarked. "It had always been an aspiration of mine to expand Shea Racing into a team effort with additional cars and drivers and this year that became a reality. We have two great drivers, Jon Miller and P.J. Groenke. It's definitely a lot being a driver and co-owner, but the reward is double when we're going well. It's an amazing feeling knowing we have so much support from our friends in the paddock and fans on our new undertaking. I look forward to further growing the team and moving up throughout the ranks." The Circuit of the Americas is without question a top notch facility on which to introduce a new team and start a new season, and from Shea Holbrook's perspective "the track looked like a flowing ribbon of red, white and blue with a lot of technicality!" Shea Holbrook came into the tripleheader weekend confident she could deliver a strong performance, in large part, because the team worked relentlessly to prepare the cars in the weeks leading up to the event. Still, the first woman to ever win a Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car race, winning the 2011 Long Beach Grand Prix, wasn't wholly content.
"It was a bit of a frustrating weekend because I performed well, but the results didn't show that. The Touring Car B class is what you would call a showroom stock spec class. After sharing and reviewing data with one of the stronger competitors (he also was experiencing challenging power ratio issues) we found we both drove the cars to their potentials. I love good competition, but all drivers and cars should have a fair shot at competing equally. Pirelli World Challenge and Honda Racing HPD are working together on getting the parity the class needs, and I can't wait to get back out there to compete because I must say, 20 plus TBC cars bumper-to-bumper, door-to-door is a ton of fun!"
As a realist aware of the shortcoming, Shea Holbrook is also an absolute professional, focused on the many positives the team took away from COTA. "Going from one car to three cars definitely hit us on pit lane," said the dynamic young K&N sponsored driver. "The crew also did a solid job on accommodating all three cars. It's awesome having a teammate to work with on track, especially someone you can trust and strategize with. The cars were prepped well which made our (the drivers) jobs easier. We'll all get to the front of the pack sooner rather than later. It will take a combination of parity amongst the class and us diligently working on how to be faster in the car." Next up on the Pirelli World Challenge schedule is the July 4th weekend at Lime Rock. "I'm very excited for Lime Rock being that it will be a new track for me. It's unique in that it's a fairly rough track and from what I've observed, and heard, it's tough to be fast there. The fast guys are going to check out quickly. The TCB class is all about drafting and utilizing cars on track to gain an advantage. It should be a very interesting weekend." "I also would like to send a special thank you out to Bell Helmets and Kocher Custom Paint. I'll be raffling off a signed helmet this season in benefit of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is near to my heart as it affects my family. To enter to win buy a raffle ticket go to our website." http://community.parentprojectmd.org/events/shea-holbrook |
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