Posted (03/02/2010) -
Wayne Nonnamaker enters the Miami Grand Prix weekend a Homestead Speedway in the lead for the Bob Akin GT Sportsman Award. This lead comes from Team Sahlen's strong showing at the ROLEX 24 at Daytona. At the 1st event of the year, The #43 Mazda RX-8 finished in 7th place and 14th overall. Amazingly,Wayne finished only 1 second out of 6th place.
"Its an honor to be in the lead of the Bob Akin Award, but lets not forget that this is only race one, and this is a long race season. Hopefully we can continue to charge forward and contend for this title this year. We have a very strong race car in the form of our Mazda RX-8 that should help us make a run for the award. And the team is working extra hard this year to take home our 2nd Sportsman Award." - states Wayne Nonnamaker
In 2nd place in the Bob Akin Sportsman GT Award is Will Nonnamaker, 70 points behind Wayne."At the end of the ROLEX 24 Hours, Wayne offered to stay out in the RX-8 and do a double shift to complete the race. I didn't really think much about it until I saw the standings, and understood his motives,,,,seriously though, Wayne drove a great finish at Daytona that just about netted us 6th place. It doesn't matter which of us is on top, as long as its one of the Team Sahlen Drivers." - states Will Nonnamaker
Wayne's brother Will won the inaugural Bob Akin GT Class Sportsman Award in 2005. During the season, Will competed head to head with Marc Bunting for the title. In the end Will captured the title with a fine 7th place finish at the season finale at Mexico City
Recently, Wayne & Will's father Joe nearly captured the 2007 Bob Akin GT Class Sportsman Award. During that season, Joe finished 2nd to Emil Assentato. Emil accumulated 4778 points to Joe's 4680 point tally. This mere 98 points was the closest finish in the history of the Bob Akin Award.
The 2010 Team Sahlen ROLEX & CONTINENTAL Tires Series Campaigns will be supported by Mazda, Mazdaspeed, HRPWorld.com, HAWK Performance, Cool Shirt, Racetech Seats, BBS, Alcon, Mothers Polish, EMCO, TheRaceSite.com, Grassroots Motorsports, Holliday Canopies, Alcon, CM Racing, Genesis Technologies, Endurance Karting, Bell Helmets, Castrol and SpeedSource Engineering.
