01/25/07: The team, which is based just down the road from the "World Center of Speed" in Deland, Florida, has signed Alex Tagliani, Guy Cosmo, Tom Nastasi, and Valerie Limoges to share the driving duties for the Rolex 24.
Nastasi will be the full-season pilot and will be joined by Tagliani in nine events during the 2007 Rolex season, including the Series' August debut in Montreal. For Limoges and Tagliani, who shared a Ford Mustang in Koni Challenge competition at Trois-Rivieres last season, the Rolex race will mark their rookie run in the famed endurance event.
"I'm really excited to be making my first Rolex start in a Mustang," said Limoges. "The car is just awesome. This is going to be an extremely competitive race, but we are excited to be the only Ford in GT and hopefully we can get a good result in our first race."
The last time Blackforest debuted a Mustang at Daytona, Nastasi took the win with the Mustang FR500C in a thrilling Koni Challenge season opener in 2005. The new Mustang Cobra GT has shown well in early pre-season testing, consistently posting times in the top five of the ultra-competitive class, and the team is looking to once again come out strong with a new Mustang.
The chassis was built by Crawford Race Cars of Denver, NC, and is mated to a Roush/Yates sourced 5-liter V8. USG Sheetrock and Ramset tools will adorn the livery of the new Mustang Cobra GT. Unlike the Mustang GT FR-500C race cars campaigned last year, the new car shares visual cues with the Shelby GT-500 including the vented hood and front fascia.
In addition to the GT campaign, Tagliani will also be making select starts with Blackforest in the Koni Challenge, including returning to race at the Grand Prix de Trois Rivieres with Limoges after the two had a strong run together in the 2006 event.
The 45th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona will start at 1:30 PM EST on January 27th. The Fox broadcast will open with ninety minutes of coverage at 1:00 PM before the race coverage is continued live on Speed Channel, which recently added 500,000 new homes to reach nearly 70 million subscribers in the US and Canada.
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