Sloan Urry, #20 SecurityNational Mortgage/Avasis/Porsche 991

TruSpeed Autosport

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Sloan Retains Points Lead Despite Challenging Weekend

Sometimes championships come from dominating performances throughout the season and sometimes they are won through consistency.  Sloan Urry returned to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama this weekend as the championship leader and despite two performance inhibiting challenges, he remained consistent, he kept his car in-tact and scored enough points to remain on top.

The first challenge for Sloan this week was physical; he injured his left forearm.  He arrived in Alabama with a hard brace but it became obvious after Thursday’s practice session that he would need more support to be able to wrestle his Porsche 991 around the twisty 2.38-mile 15-turn road course.  Concerned about the weekend ahead and protecting the points lead, TruSpeed Autosport race engineer Tim Lewis contacted Olympic boxing coach, Dave Godber.  Godber owns Round One Boxing for Health in Birmingham and his very familiar with the taping techniques required to stabilize injuries for continued competition.  Godber was willing to help and spent the weekend at the track preparing Sloan’s arm for each session, “I’m really grateful to Dave.  His help made all the difference for me this weekend.  I am still in quite a bit of pain, but I might not have been able to compete without his help.”

The second challenge was mechanical.  The behavior of the #20 SecurityNational/Avasis/Porsche 991 changed dramatically from practice on Friday afternoon where Sloan recorded the fast time by a half a second.  Fighting massive oversteer, Sloan’s qualifying time on Saturday morning was slower than his practice times from Friday and in race one on Saturday afternoon, he struggled to keep the car on track. His fastest lap time during the race was two seconds slower than his quickest lap the day before. Despite the challenges, he preserved his equipment and took the checkered flag in third position, earning 90 valuable points.  Frustrated and confused, but committed to excellence, the TruSpeed Autosport team worked until midnight inspecting, rebuilding and replacing many components of the car on Saturday.

Sloan returned Sunday morning for his final race of the weekend hoping to pilot a much improved car, and looking for a victory.  Sloan took the green flag under sunny skies and immediately began to challenge Corey Fergus in the #00 Porsche. The two battled up and down the hills and through the 13 turns throughout the 45-minute race.  With just two minutes to go, Fergus was hit by another competitor and Sloan assumed second position, where he remained until the checkered flag.

Watch the race on CBS Sports next Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 4:00pm ET. Next up: Sloan heads North to Canada in May for a double-header at MoSport with a six-point championship lead over Alec Udell.  For more information, visit www.sur.ujaz.com

Sloan Urry: “Corey (Fergus) and I had a great battle throughout the race today.  Unfortunately, he was spun by another competitor. I feel bad for him, but I am happy for the points we scored out there today, and I am happy to push forward in the championship. I am looking forward to going testing soon because we have some gremlins in the car that we didn’t really figure out here.  Luckily we have some time before MoSport to work on that and also for my arm to heal.  Always a big thank you to Avasis, SecurityNational Mortgage and my team TruSpeed for getting us here and able to be a competitive effort.”

Tyler Tadevic: “It wasn’t an easy weekend for us, but I am really proud of Sloan and the TruSpeed guys.  It could have easily gone another way for us but Sloan hung in there and salvaged all the points he could and the boys worked their tails of to improve the car.”

Pictured left to right: Steve Urry (Sloan’s Father), Sloan and Boxing Coach Dave Godber.

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