DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 29, 2010) – Defending Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series champion Compass360 Racing started its 2010 title defense in the strongest possible manner Friday, taking the Street Tuner (ST) class victory at the season-opening Fresh from Florida 200, part of the annual Rolex 24 weekend at Daytona International Speedway.Lawson Aschenbach and David Thilenius took their Honda Civic Si to the ST class win over a large, 36-car field in the first Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (formerly KONI Challenge) race of the 2010 season, as the Toronto-based Compass360 organization began pursuit of its second consecutive ST championship.
Additional Compass360 entries finished fourth (Ben and Don Theetge) and fifth (Ryan Eversley and Zach Lutz) as Civic Si’s claimed five of the top seven finishing positions.
Following the Compass cars across the finish line at Daytona was the fifth-place Honda of America Racing Team (HART) Civic of Chad Gilsinger, Bryan Johnson and John Schmitt – all associates of Honda of America Manufacturing and Honda R&D Americas. Jorge and Juan Leroux rounded out the top seven ST finishers in their LRT Civic Si.
With the victory, Honda takes an early-season lead in the ST class manufacturers’ championship standings over rivals BMW, Mazda, Volkswagen and Porsche. The next round in the 10-race championship takes place March 6 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. The Continental Tire series also runs as part of the IZOD IndyCar Series weekend April 8-10 at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama.
[Photo courtesy of Dan Dodge and Compass360]
