Peregrine Racing Perseveres for Top 10 in Qualifying Race, Prepare for Inaugural Rolex 24
Daytona Beach, Fla. (January 26, 2022) — With an eighth place finish in the Roar Before the Rolex 24 qualifying race on Sunday afternoon, Peregrine Racing’s brand new Carbahn Motorsports prepped No. 39 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO showed strong pace. Daytona International Speedway’s 3.61-mile, 12-turn road course hosted a 61-car grid for the 100-minute sprint to set the starting order for next weekend’s 60th Running of the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA. Robert Megennis and Sandy Mitchell assumed driving duties for Peregrine.
Robert Megennis started the sprint from thirteenth position and wasted no time steadily moving forward. A productive week of testing their new platform helped Peregrine advance five positions on track in the opening stint.
Sandy Mitchell executed a strong and consistent drive to bring the Huracán home for a top-10 finish, securing an eighth place Rolex 24 starting position for the team. The Scottish driver showed excellent pace to close-up to the cars ahead, racing door-to-door on the final lap.
Peregrine Racing returns this weekend to kick off their first full IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season with their inaugural 24-hour enduro, the 60th Running of the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA. The main event begins January 27 with Practice 1 at 11:05 a.m. EST. Green flag for the 24-hour battle drops at 1:40 pm EST on Saturday, January 29.
INSIGHT FROM THE GTD COCKPIT AND PITWALL:
Robert Megennis
“This was my first dry IMSA start, which was super fun,” said Robert Megennis. “I made up some spots. I was in eighth when I came into the pits. I’m actually super happy with that. We’re making so much headway on the car and so much headway on my driving. All of it’s coming together and I’m excited. We’re headed in a really good direction and we’re going to have a really strong car and a really strong team when we get to the race. Sandy did a great job closing it out. If we had two more laps, we would’ve had two more spots. I’m having fun. I’m excited to keep going.
Sandy Mitchell
“We had a good Roar. We moved forward a few positions up inside the top-10 now which is a nice starting position for next week, so I’m looking forward to that,” said Sandy Mitchell. “It looked like we had pretty good race pace and the pace at the end was especially good. I had good fun and was really closing down on two or three cars for position ahead and managed to get on their bumpers on the last lap. I got along side, but I just couldn’t make the pass stick. We’re feeling pretty confident now and we know we’ve got a good driver lineup, so if we can find a little bit more speed in the test next week, then I think we’ll be right there—in with a shout of the top runners in GTD.”
Jeff Westphal
Qualifying position is eighth, which is a great run for us considering this is day three with our Carbahn Motorsports prepped No. 39 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO,” said Jeff Westphal. “The team has done a great job and worked super hard every day, even in days previous to the track. Progress has been quite swift since our shakedown on day one. Each session we got stronger and stronger, and better and better, and this qualifying race shows that we have pretty good long-run pace. We’re working on a little more speed, but we’re making big gains so I’m optimistic for next week.”
Corey Lewis
“Overall, during these last couple days at the Roar, we’ve made a lot of progress with the race car,” said Corey Lewis. “Everyone in the team is really gelling extremely well and it paid dividends here in the race. We’ll take what we learned from here into next weekend. I have to shout out the guys for executing an awesome pit stop as well. Everyone is syncing and we have a lot to focus on heading into the race ahead, but overall a very, very good Roar weekend and we’ll hit the ground running come race week.”
