Starworks Motorsports is expanding its Grand-Am program for 2012, adding a Continental Tires GS class Ford Mustang to its Riley-Ford Daytona Prototype operation. Ryan Dalziel and Enzo Potolicchio, who won the season-closing Rolex Series race at Mid-Ohio this year, will drive both cars.
“It was a natural decision for me to stay with Starworks," said Dalziel. "I have been there for a couple of years. We had a great season and it ended on a massive high with the victory at Mid-Ohio. I think it was an obvious choice that Enzo and myself would team up full time for 2012."
Dalziel explained that the decision to add the Continental Cup program is intended to maximize track time at Grand-Am weekends.
"We wanted to maximize the race weekend and give Enzo as much track time as possible," said the Scot. “A lot of the tracks are still new to him this year. The GS and ST series has a full promoter day before the event that the Rolex doesn't get. We had looked at an ST program, but we wanted to stay within the Ford family. They have built a very good Mustang for the GS competition so it was a natural choice for us to keep everything in the same family."
He added that Starworks has undertaken an extensive makeover to upgrade its Daytona Prototype program, including signing former Forsythe Racing IndyCar engineer Steve Challis.
“From midseason, we had a plan for building a championship-challenging team for 2012," said Dalziel. "From the last race, we have turned the team upside down. A lot of people think we are crazy because we won at Mid-Ohio, but we have brought in a lot of new people. We have a new race engineer in Steve Challis – he has won the Indy 500, the Champ Car championship…pretty much everything. He is the guy everyone wants and we are fortunate to have him.
“We are really going into 2012 expecting to be better than last season. So far, that has proved to be the right direction. We did the preseason test in November at Daytona. We were the quickest there. We are definitely confident about the future. We still have a lot of work to do, because we are not even close to where we want to be.
“We have a few more months to figure it all out. We are not even expecting miracles at the Roar, but we expect to go to Daytona for race week and have a fast, reliable car.”