Detroit Friday Notebook

Photo: John Dagys

***Turner Motorsport is racing with heavy hearts this weekend following the passing of Linda Turner, mother of team owner Will Turner, earlier this week. Linda managed travel and logistics for the team. She died Monday at the age of 68 after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer. The team’s BMW Z4 GT3 is carrying a memorial decal this weekend (pictured above).

***The No. 58 Snow Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Jan Heylen and Madison Snow is being run in conjunction with Dempsey Racing this weekend. Jim Bell, who engineered the No. 27 Dempsey Porsche, is no longer with the team, with Snow’s John Wright engineering both cars. No deal has been made post-Detroit, but the hope is that both teams will continue their partnership.

***Madison Snow, who at 18 years of age is the youngest driver in Saturday’s race, graduates high school on Thursday.

***With OAK Racing pulling double-duty between Detroit and the Le Mans Test Day, a handful of crew members from 8Star Motorsports are giving the French squad a helping hand this weekend, including Gary Neal, who fills in for team manager Pierre-Alain Bouhet. OAK team principal Philippe Dumas is also in France, although team owner Jacques Nicolet is in Detroit and will fly with driver Olivier Pla on Saturday evening to La Sarthe.

***Both the No. 19 Muehlner Motorsport and No. 71 Park Place Motorsport Porsche 911 GT Americas have been withdrawn from the weekend. It’s resulted in an expected 30-car starting field for Saturday’s 100-minute race, which takes the green flag at 12:10 p.m. ET.

***While opting to go with a two-driver approach for the upcoming Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, Mike Rockenfeller will return to Spirit of Daytona Racing for the season-ending Petit Le Mans. The Audi factory driver currently leads the DTM championship as the defending series champion.

***Extreme Speed Motorsports team manager Robin Hill said he expects to take delivery of their first HPD ARX-04b in early November. The team announced earlier this month that it will campaign two of the brand-new closed-top P2 cars in 2015.

***A benefactor is putting the Austin Hatcher Foundation, an official charity of IMSA, on Jeffrey Earnhardt’s No. 4 Chevrolet in Saturday’s Buckle Up 200 Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John