Ford Racing Technology's Mustang FRC500C continued its impressive Daytona form in Santo Domingo on March 13 with a strong points haul and a share of the championship lead.
The two Multimatic Motorsports machines finished 3rd and 4th with Scott Maxwell and David Empringham leading home team-mates Gunnar Jeannette and James Gue.
With a second and third in the two opening rounds, Maxwell and Empringham now lead the 2005 Grand-Am Cup Championship - sharing the honor with the BMW M3 of Rob Finlay and Michael McDowell.
Jeannette made a barnstorming start in the #05 car, moving up from 5th on the grid through to 2nd by lap 12. Maxwell was equally as impressive to move from 9th to 5th by that stage.
The Canadian star continued to make inroads and by lap 19, Maxwell had moved to 3rd place behind Jeannette.
The race-winning BMW of Justin Marks pitted on lap 52, leaving Jeannette in the lead for a lap before he headed to the pits to hand over to James Gue. However, a lap later, officials were forced to bring out the yellow flag after a power failure brought down the timing and scoring system.
A slow pit stop had hindered the Jeannette/Gue effort before the yellow flag period. When racing finally resumed 37 minutes later, Gue began a great fightback to bring the #05 car home in 4th - significantly bettering their 9th place debut run at Daytona.
Empringham climbed aboard #55 Mustang just as the power failure hit. He resumed in third place and held on to clinch that team's second consecutive podium finish.
The Multimatic Motorsports squad will now head to California for the next round of the championship at California Speedway, Fontana on April 30.
SCOTT MAXWELL
"This is a really good result for us because this track doesn't suit the Mustang a lot and my performance in qualifying left David and I with a lot of work to do today. The car really ran like a train but I had to use up a lot of the car in my stint and was pretty hard on the tires trying to get through the field. But we weren't expecting much today and to come away with a share of the championship lead is brilliant. David and I just kept plugging away all race and the guys in the pits did a brilliant job."
DAVID EMPRINGHAM
"Scotty did a great job in his stint to move us back into contention. Passing is pretty tough around this place and he more than made up for the tough qualifying we had yesterday. I got into the car just before the officials had the power failure problem. I pushed as hard as I could but the BMWs were always going to be tough around here. Two races done and we have share the championship lead - this has been a great start for the new Mustang."
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