Catchfence

Bowmanville, Ont (June 13, 2010) The Gaunt Brothers Racing team posted its
second consecutive top-5 finish in NASCAR Canadian Tire Series competition
Sunday. Driver Jason Bowles carved up the Mosport International Speedway
road course to bring home the Triad Racing Technologies racecar in
third-place.

Bowles, brought in to drive the road course events for GBR, was making his
first start in the NCATS series. Faced with tough competition on a track
widely considered one of the most challenging in the series, Bowles had to
be a quick study in getting up to speed.

Despite a damp, wet Saturday morning, both practice sessions were completed
in their entirety. Bowles was trying to run as many laps as possible to get
a handle on the 2.5 mile course that has more twists, turns and elevation
changes than a roller coaster at your local amusement park.

“The biggest thing I have to get used to here is the brakes. Compared to
what we run in the West Series they are really small,” Bowles said between
practices as he assessed areas to improve lap times. “You’re going pretty
fast by the end of the back straight and I just need to find the confidence
that this thing is going to slow down for the right-hander at the end of
it.”

Rains then washed out qualifying that afternoon, pushing the session to
Sunday morning. Bowles, quick enough in practice to run in the fast group
for time trials, put the No.11 GBR machine in the field 11th.

All said and done, Bowles had just 20 laps under his belt heading in to the
main event.

Knowing track position and strategy was key to Sunday’s race, GBR planned to
pit early, as soon as their fuel window opened up. Bowles maintained his
position through the first dozen laps of the race then ducked onto pit lane
as the field passed the stripe for lap 13. The GBR crew topped off the car
with fuel and sent Bowles back into the action.

Four laps later the caution flag flew and the rest of the field trickled in
for pit stops, putting Bowles out front for a lap 19 restart. When the
green flag fell, Bowles took off and put twenty car lengths between himself
and the rest of the field. Hard chargers JR Fitzpatrick and Andrew Ranger
were lined up a few positions back in the top ten and would have to fight
through the cars ahead to get to Bowles.

Fitzpatrick, the eventual winner, spent seven laps trying to gain on the
Triad machine before making a pass for the lead on the long back straight.

Once by, however, he could not shake Bowles and the two resumed their dog
fight with the first two positions switched. They ran essentially nose to
tail for the next 15 laps stretching out a five second lead on third place
Andrew Ranger.

By lap 42, Bowles was having trouble keeping rear tires planted exiting the
corners and radioed in that he was losing forward bite. Fitzpatrick had
taken tires during the caution and was beginning to stretch out a lead as a
result. Ranger, on fresher tires as well, was coming into the picture
behind the No.11 car and beginning to apply pressure. On lap 47 Bowles
decided to let Ranger by, knowing he couldn’t hold him off with the older
rubber. The cushion back to fourth place Scott Steckly was big enough for
Bowles not to overdrive and safely bring home a podium finish at the
checkers.

“That was a really good day for us out here,” said Bowles following his
third-place run at Mosport. “The guys did a really great job setting this
car up and making changes. We literally just got this car finished on
Wednesday and our only test was driving up and down the street in
Mooresville (North Carolina).

“We were struggling a little bit yesterday to find speed, but a lot of that
was me just not having any laps around here. I learned more in the race
about how to get around here and once we were out front and running with
Fitzpatrick it all came together. This is a great track, a lot of fun to
drive and the car was really good – we didn’t have one problem with it all
weekend.

“Pre-race we discussed our pit strategy and it played out really well to get
us some track position. We didn’t take tires, but the sun hurt us more than
anything there when I was losing forward bite. I was hoping for a late race
caution to cool the tires down and give us a shot at JR there in the end,
but we’ll take third, it’s a good result for us.

With a few weeks between events now, the NCATS Series switches back to the
ovals and moves to the Quebec province and the Autodrome St. Eustache event
outside Montreal.

“We’ve got some time and some things to do before I get in the car again at
Toronto to make it better,” said Bowles. “I’m excited about street racing
in this series. For now though, I’ll turn the car over to John for the next
race and see if he can’t keep pushing the team and our results up the
ladder.”

GBR’s third place finish at Mosport puts the No.11 team third overall in
owners points behind Fitzpatrick’s No.84 and DJ Kennington’s No.17.

- Gaunt Brothers Racing Press Release