Best Finish of the Season for Burrows with Mid-Ohio Podium

Mansfield, Ohio (9 June 2012)– Adam Burrows and co-driver Andrew Novich scored their best finish of the 2012 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series season to date with a run to third at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Saturday in the No. 74 Dr. Kimberly Henry/ Speed Secrets Honda Civic Si for Compass360 Racing (C360R).

Novich opened the race as the fifth place ST runner in the 61-car combined class grid  and ran a great first stunt before turning a perfect Honda Civic car over to Burrows. Burrows moved steadily up through the order, from a top-10 run to fighting for fifth to then being the caboose in a three car train for the lead.  A pair of late race yellows set the stage for a pair of shootouts as Burrows worked to fight forward while also trying to hold back the charge of a large contingent of ST class runners.

He kept his head down and delivered his 10th career GRAND-AM Continental Tire podium and the best result of Novich’s young GRAND-AM career.

“I’m really happy for the C360R guys and Andrew to be up on the podium,”  said Burrows, who took his first career podium at Iowa Speedway co-driving with Hopwood on the way to their  2007 championship. “I have to give a tremendous amount of credit for this finish to the C360R crew and their pit work.  It was lightning fast . . . when I looked up from buckling my belts, they were already waving me out.  That paid huge dividends in track position. It was a very close fight up front for the lead and I wanted to make the most of having such a strong car underneath me. Andrew did a great job to stay focused and put us in the position to fight for a podium. We’ve been building towards a result like this, so it was rewarding to finally bring it home today.”

The weekend was also highlighted by the return to GRAND-AM competition for Trevor Hopwood, who got the last-minute call to rejoin the C360R squad for the Mid-Ohio weekend. The former Champ shared the driving duties with team principal Karl Thomson, who qualified the car on the eighth row for the 2.5-hour race. Thomson moved all the way up to fifth before turning the car over to Hopwood.

But the pit cycle didn’t favor the No. 77 machine and Hopwood returned to the fray deep in the pack. Despite working to make up the lost ground, the eight caution periods that slowed the race cost Hopwood the racing laps to fight forward.

“It was great to be back here with C360R this weekend,” said Hopwood, who is looking forward to his first summer as a proud papa. “I didn’t have the brakes I really needed to make up much ground. I was able to get some very good runs out of the corners, but I couldn’t close the deal because I had to be careful with a bit of a soft pedal. But it was  a good weekend overall,  and a big congrats to Adam and Andrew for getting up on the podium.”