Blackforest Steps Up

September 15 - Blackforest Motorsports, which delivered the Ford Mustang FR500C's first win in its debut at Daytona International Speedway in 2005, will be looking to accomplish a similar feat in 2007. The Florida-based squad has announced plans to contest the 2007 Rolex Sports Car Series season in GT Class competition with a Prep2 Mustang Cobra.

Ford Racing will build the race engines utilizing infrastructure which is already in place to support the FR500C Grand-Am Cup program, and the Mustang Cobra will ride on a Crawford Racing-designed and built chassis.

The Blackforest Mustang Cobra will race in the GT Class against competition that includes the Pontiac GTO.R, Ferrari F430, and Porsche 997 GT3.

Advertisement:

The Blackforest GT test program will commence in October after the conclusion of the 2006 Grand-Am Cup Series season at Virginia International Raceway, where the team will field three Ford Mustang FR500C entries. The Mustang Cobra GT class program has been in the planning stages for nearly a year, and the team is working hard for the Mustang Cobra's debut at Daytona in four months' time.

"We are really excited about growing our relationship with Ford and moving up to the GT class," said car owner Tom Nastasi. "We want to make sure the car is competitive right out of the box. We have a pretty good idea where we need to be, and will be testing frequently to make sure we get there in time for the 24."

Blackforest will continue to compete with a four-car entry in the Grand-Am Cup Series in the GS class with the Mustang FR500C, and will also grow to include two ST class entries with the Mazda RX-8.

The GT program will be headed by Brian Nott, who founded Blackforest in 2000, and has wins in every category he has competed in, including serving as crew chief for Buddy Lazier's 1996 Indianapolis 500 victory.

The team will make announcements concerning sponsorship details and driver line-up in advance of the opening round of the 2007 Rolex Sports Car Series season.

CP