by Team Divaspeed
February 13, 2008.

Donna Gilio & Glorymar Fernandez

Team Divaspeed finishes in 2 nd place in their debut race at NASA's opening event for the Western Endurance Racing Championship Series held at Infineon Raceway February 10, 2008.

Team Divaspeed is a newly developed team for 2008 and their goal is be the first all female race team to compete in the most extreme auto racing sport around: the 25 hours of Thunderhill!

In their debut effort, Glorymar Fernandez, the latin beauty, traveled all the way from her home country of Puerto Rico to pair up with team owner Donna Gilio. Glory has never been to Infineon Raceway before and she has not been in this car either, says Donna. She did an unbelievable job of driving the car and came up to speed quickly. Learning a new track and learning a new car is a challenge for anyone.

The enduro race started on Sunday and saw a field of 30 + cars entered. Team Divaspeed's Acura Integra races in the hotly contested E2 class which always hosts the largest entry of cars. Glory started the race and since there is no qualifying, cars are picked at random and unfortunately, our starting position was 4 th from last. Glory made the best of it and quickly drove through the field. She raced a smart race and kept the car in great shape with absolutely no incidence. Glory moved our team up to 3 rd place and we had a 36 second deficit behind the E2 leader.

 Just a little Before the halfway mark, our crew chief Ron Carroll, also crew chief for World Challenge winner Jeff Altenburg, gets on the radio and calls Glory in for the driver change and fuel stop. Things go smoothly without any problem and Donna hops in the car to race the remaining enduro and take it to the checkered flag.

Donna drove fast and smart and by lap 60 in the 2/12 hour enduro, she made up the time difference and passed the leader and also moved up to 3 rd overall. Donna settles into an easy rhythm trying to conserve fuel and maintain the lead at the same time. It is important not to overdrive the car in Enduro racing so that tires and parts don't wear out by the end of the race. With 20 minutes left to go in the race, Donna notices that we burned a little more fuel than anticipated, so she stayed out there as long as she possibly could go, but the car was so starved for fuel that the car was burping in every turn. In a moment of dramatic fashion, on the last lap, Donna had to come in for a quick splash of gas, and take it to the checkered flag. We ended up 2 nd in class in E2 and 8 th overall.

The racing was fantastic and exciting all weekend long and the weather was beautiful. NASA had a sold out event and team divaspeed did a tremendous job. Aim Tires and Hankook supplied us with tires for the race and our Main Sponsor Celerity Investments gave Ron Carroll the opportunity to build us an incredible car.

To learn more about our Team and drivers, please visit our website: www.Divaspeed.com .

A very special thanks must go out to Karen Salvaggio. She is an amazing talented racer and I personally want to thank her for her support in women racing by giving women racers a place to showcase.

Karen, you rock

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