Action Express Racing eager for Canadian Tire Motorsport Park debut

Denver, N.C. – Action Express Racing is fresh off of a big weekend at the Sahlen’s 6 Hours of the Glen two weeks ago in which Christian Fittipaldi and João Barbosa not only captured the team’s fifth podium of the year, but also further strengthened its 2014 championship goal.

Fittipaldi and Barbosa scored third in the race to move to within three points of the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar championship lead, while Burt and Brian Frisselle and Jon Fogarty took home fourth. The strong results of both Action Express team cars at the Glen saw the group leave with a 1-2 hold on the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup with just one race remaining (Petit Le Mans, October 4th) in the four round championship within a championship.

The team carries that championship-building momentum to Canadian Tire Motorsports Park this weekend as the group heads north of the border with the No. 5 Corvette DP entry of Fittipaldi and Barbosa.

The Canadian race,  which marks the only round of IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship competition outside of the States, presents a new challenge to several teams in the paddock – including Action Express Racing. The team has never competed at the facility ahead of this weekend’s event and will look to get the most out of four on-track practice sessions and get quickly up to speed.

While Fittipaldi has had many race starts through the streets of nearby Toronto in CART race action (best finish of third in 1999 & 2002), the open-wheel star turned sportscar ace will turn his first laps at the 2.459-mile, 10 turn Canadian road course on Friday.

Despite the lack of track time for the drivers at the recently rejuvenated facility, Action Express Racing enters the weekend well-prepared with a deep talent pool of drivers and team personnel. Team Manager Gary Nelson as well as Engineer Iain Watt and Director of Operations Elton Sawyer have years of motorsport experience between the three of them and are eager to rise to the challenge of the new circuit.

The team has shown in the past that it can perform well, even on new tracks. When the team arrived to Kansas for IMSA’s debut race there last year, Action Express Racing showed no lack of pace and delivered a double top-five result with the team’s two-car entry.

“Action Express has been busy gathering all the information we can to fill our note books before actually arriving at the Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsports Park) track,” said Team Manager Gary Nelson. “Earlier this year we raced at Long Beach for the first time and it worked out fine and we came away with a podium finish. Years ago, going to a new track without any testing was a huge challenge for any race team. Today it is a lot easier. We have great simulation programs, satellite images, GoPro video and many more things like that in our tool boxes. Our basic approach is the same as we approach all events - when the track opens for practice, be ready. The information we receive from those first practice laps will help us create our work list to get all of the speed we can from our car setup.”

Action Express Racing will have three, one hour-long practice sessions ahead of qualifying on Saturday evening which takes place at 6:05 PM ET. A 20-minute warm up Sunday morning will be followed by the 2.75-hour Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix Presented by Hawk Performance which will go green at 2:05 PM ET.

Qualifying can be viewed on Saturday via video streaming on IMSA.com. FOX Sports 1 will televise live coverage of Sunday’s race beginning at 2:00 PM ET.

Action Express Racing