Monterey Friday Notebook

***TRG-AMR’s No. 009 Aston Martin Vantage, the team’s second car, has been withdrawn for the weekend per the team. The lead No. 007 continues with James Davison and Al Carter.

***AIM Autosport premieres a new livery to its No. 555 Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 this week, to be driven by Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler. The red and black car will feature logos from Revo, Robert Graham, Royal Purple and Motegi Racing.

***2013 PC class champion and Monterey race winner Mike Guasch is taking a temporary hiatus for the rest of 2014 to refocus his attention on new products of Molecule Labs. Guasch’s 2013 Monterey co-driver, Luis Diaz, returns to action this weekend in 8Star Motorsports’ entry alongside Sean Rayhall.

***Despite being born and raised in Monterey County, driving thousands of laps and spending time as track instructor, it’s been three years since SRT Motorsports’ Jonathan Bomarito has been on the podium at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, when he finished third in the 2011 GRAND-AM Rolex Series’ GT class in a Mazda RX-8. Bomarito seeks a hometown breakthrough this weekend in the No. 93 SRT Viper GTS-R, co-driving with Kuno Wittmer, and the pair should improve on a finish of 11th in 2013.

***The No. 58 Snow Racing Porsche 911 GT America returns in the same livery and with the same car number as appeared at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, with drivers Jan Heylen and Madison Snow. The partnership with Rum Bum Racing and the switch to a Rum Bum tie-dye livery and No. 13 was a one-off at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

***Performance Tech Motorsports’ crew spent more than 100 hours to rebuild and repair the same chassis following its Sebring accident. For one of the drivers of the No. 38, David Ostella, it marks his first track appearance since Star Mazda three years ago.

***Along the same lines, PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports’ crew required more than 250 hours to rebuild its No. 52 chassis after being caught up in the same accident as Performance Tech, per team principal Bobby Oergel.

***Rounding out the quartet of PC car accidents at Sebring, the BAR1 Motorsports team rebuilt the No. 88 chassis from Sebring, while RSR Racing has built up a new tub for its No. 08 entry. BAR1’s No. 88 is in carbon fiber livery while the No. 08 for RSR is in its full livery. BAR1 team principal Brian Alder did not specify whether the team’s second chassis will return later this season.

***South Africa’s Stephen Simpson received a late call this week to confirm his place alongside Chris Miller in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports PC class entry at Monterey. Simpson has competed at the track both in A1GP and in ALMS; the latter in a P1 class Creation in 2008. The team also takes on a different livery, with a bright yellow scheme replacing the gray and blue it ran at Sebring.

***Muehlner Motorsports America is still yet to confirm the driver lineup of its two Porsche 911 GT Americas. Mark Kvamme and Dillon Machavern’s names have been listed above the cockpit of the team’s No. 19 chassis as of Friday.

***A new live scoring software, found at http://Live.raceposition.com via SPAA05.com, premieres this weekend. It’s linked to the software on the race track at timing and scoring that controls the leader lights. How it works is that each car that participates during the race is shown as a baseball card, showing the car image from the official IMSA spotters’ guide, with the cards then sorted in the correct order and changing positions live as it happens on the track.