And the press release... Millville: Owen Trinkler race report Racing series GRANDAM Date 2010-07-22 Trinkler Wins The NJMP 250 with RSR Motorsports Rebuilt Mini Cooper S Makes its Debut for the Rest of the Season Altamonte Springs, FL/July 14, 2010 Owen Trinkler, one of the most recognizable names in GRAND-AM racing, made a triumphant return at the NJMP 250 presented by Crown Royal at the New Jersey Motorsports Park at Millville, New Jersey. The weekend race also saw the return of the rebuilt No.198 RSR-Motorsports Mini Cooper S. Driving with Trinkler was RSR team owner Randall Smalley. With the rebuilt Mini Cooper, Trinkler led RSR Motorsports to victory, his second in the series and Smalley's first. In the second practice of the weekend, Owen decided to put the RSR Motorsports Mini Cooper S through the paces and ended up finishing 1st in the session with a time of 1:33.984. Trinklers team mate, Smalley, qualified 17th in a very competitive ST Class of the Continental Tire Challenge Series with a time of 1:36.115. More exciting than even the win for RSR Motorsports was the performance of the rebuilt Mini Cooper S. The car had been rebuilt from the chassis up due to catching fire at an earlier race this season. With its strong debut at the NJMP 250, RSR Motorsports is confident that the rebuilt car, with Trinklers guidance, will provide the team the data necessary to make needed changes to the balance of the teams' fleet of Mini Cooper S' to lead the team towards more victories this season. Owen Trinkler spearheaded the development of the GT2 Corvette that ran in the ALMS in 2000. This is his second full season with RSR Motorsports in the Mini Cooper S. He has consulted and trained for Audi, Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Panoz, and Subaru. He was selected as one of the 25 young Drivers in the USA to participate in the distinguished Team Green's Indy Car Academy Scholarship. In 2009 Trinkler qualified in Pole Position on two occasions and had a season-best finish of 4th place at Barber Motorsports Park while leading laps in a number of races for his RSR Motorsports team in the Mini Cooper S race car. This is in addition to the two pole positions he earned for the same team in the 2008 racing season, but shadows in comparison to his many racing accomplishments.
Congrats to Randy and the entire team. Knew this was coming eventually, but it is still very sweet. The latter half of this clip has some good racing footage of the 198 car showing its mettle in the turns...and a parting shot of Owen at the end: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2W6LkvRnU[/ame]