Team MGR Racing Wins at California Speedway

Fontana, CA, August 2, 2009. It didn’t take Team MGR Racing too much time to get the most out of their new Ford Fusion ASC Racecar. After the car’s debut at Buttonwillow, team owner Manuel Gil del Real, decided to move the car to Leo Motorsports shop based in Cordes Lakes, AZ for the balance of the season. Under Ralph Byers’ technical expertise, the #27 Fusion, this time sponsored by MGR Consulting Group, showed from the first practice session that it would be hard to beat at the fastest track in ASC Racing’s schedule.

“The car was fantastic right out of the trailer. This is a challenging track with real fast sections around the oval combined with tight first gear hairpins, yet the car was fun to drive all the way around,” said Manuel Gil del Real.

Manuel qualified in 5th place for Saturday’s race after running into traffic during his qualifying run. The top 6 cars were only separated by three tenths of a second. However, after the green flag dropped, Manuel was able to move all the way to first place by turn 3 leading into the infield. From there, he kept his position until the end of the race.

On Sunday, Manuel qualified in 3rd place despite having a problem with the carburetor. After qualifying, it was discovered that a small piece of debris had obstructed the fuel flow at wide open throttle around the oval. By race time, the problem was fixed and the racecar was ready to go. At the green flag, Manuel moved to second place, relentlessly chasing the ST1 Corvette that took the pole earlier in the day. By lap 2 Manuel was bump drafting the Corvette and getting ready to set him up to pass him at the end of the oval. However, the #27 Fusion got too close to one of the infield chicanes, slightly hitting it with the right front fender which caused him to spin at the next turn.

“I think that hit knocked off the alignment of my front right wheel and when I took the next left hander turn, the car pushed quite a bit. When I forced it to turn in, the back end suddenly snapped into oversteer causing the spin…” said Gil del Real after the race.

That put him back in 10th place, however, there was a lot of time left in the race and he took no time to start advancing back through the field. With three laps to go, he was back in fourth place. With one lap to go he was in third place behind the Viper GT-R driven by Mark Alger, Saturday’s pole sitter. They both approached NASCAR turn 1-2 side by side dicing through slower traffic. Manuel went high and Mark went low. At the exit of turn 2 and into the hard braking turn 3, they were back side by side, only this time, a third car that was being lapped would make things much more interesting. The Viper, the Fusion and the lapped car went three-wide through turn 3! This is a turn that is tight even for one car… Somehow, Manuel managed to come ahead into turn 4 regaining his original second place in the process.

From there on, it was just a matter of keeping the car on the track to the finish. The winning Corvette took the checkered flag 10 seconds ahead of Manuel’s Ford Fusion, yet it was Manuel who set the fastest lap of the race with a 1:45.5, just 5 tenths off his qualifying time on Saturday.

“This has been a great weekend for our team. The new partnership with Leo Motorsports and having Ralph Byers back as my Crew Chief have made a world of difference to our program. Now we have a very competitive car for the NASA Championships at Miller Motorsports Park next month,” said Manuel Gil del Real at the end of the weekend.

For more information about Team MGR Racing, please visit http://www.mgrracing.net/

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