Vance Rejoins French behind Wheel in Detroit as Team Wants To Keep Rolling - Speedway Digest

Performance Tech Motorsports hopes to hunt down a third consecutive podium finish this season as the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic Presented by Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers will welcome the Prototype Challenge class for the first time.

The No. 38 ORECA FLM09 machine will take to the streets of Belle Isle in Detroit on May 29-30 with the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. The team comes to Detroit off its second straight third-place finish, in early May at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

James French once again will be behind the wheel of the team’s car. Joining French as co-driver will be James Vance, who returns to Performance Tech for the first time since the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January.

This will be French’s first race on a street circuit. But he helped the team finish third during his first trip to Mazda Raceway, therefore Performance Tech hopes for another solid performance from French.

Team Principal Brent O’Neill is looking forward to returning to a street course. The team’s last street course appearance was in 2013 at the Grand Prix of Baltimore, where the team won the PC class.

“Detroit is a much different place than any other track we’ve been to,” O’Neill said. “It’s not like any other street course. But I’m happy to be going to Detroit this year, to be a part of the big show.

“Like at any street course, the trick here is to stay on course and not crash. We’re on a roll right now. We want to keep it going. We took James French to Watkins Glen for testing. I think we’ve got him going in a good direction. We should be ready for this race.”

The team will host sponsor Ric-Man Detroit Inc., a construction company. Former Prototype Lites driver Danny Mancini, from Detroit, owns the corporation and will bring many of his employees for a day of excitement at the track.

“We’re excited to have Danny Mancini out,” O’Neill said. “He’s a great sponsor and a great driver. We always enjoy having him out to our races. We’re excited to see him bring out the women and men that work for him. We look forward to having a pretty big cheering section.”

The race weekend begins with practice at 8:45 a.m. (ET) Friday, May 29, with qualifying later in the day at 5:10 p.m. The 100-minute race starts at 12:05 p.m. Saturday, May 30 and will be broadcast live on FOX Sports 2 beginning at noon. Fans can also follow the race by visiting scoring.imsa.com or following on Twitter with updates from @IMSALive.

Keep up with Performance Tech Motorsports by following the team on Facebook and Twitter at @Perf_Tech. For more information on the team, visit performancetechmotorsports.com.

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Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.