BRASELTON, GA  (October 2, 2011) - Early last summer, CORE autosport was born from the remnants of Inspire Motorsports, the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites team Jon Bennett had purchased at the beginning of the 2010 season. The team was closing in on the Lites 1 Championship and Bennett was completing his first full season in the Lites series – and only a few close associates knew the ideas Bennett had for the future.

Those ideas paid off in spades at Petit Le Mans this year, as CORE autosport won both the driver’s championship and the team championship in their first year in the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón’s Le Mans Prototype Challenge (LMPC) standings. When the season came to an end, the team had earned 10 podium finishes in nine races between the #05 Bayshore Recycling/Composite Resources  and #06 Excel Consultants/ Composite Resources cars, with the team drivers Gunnar Jeannette, Ricardo Gonzalez, Frankie Montecalvo and Bennett making CORE autosport a force to be reckoned with at every ALMS event.

But those who know Bennett aren’t surprised at the seemingly meteoric rise the team has enjoyed. Bennett admits that always looking around the next corner is something of a compulsion, but today he’s looking back – at the circumstances and the series that set the team up for this breakthrough LMPC season, the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Championship.

“A couple of things occurred,” explains Bennett “Number one, my manufacturing company back home (Rock Hill, South Carolina-based Composite Resources) was doing very well. And I’ve always felt there’s a time to wait and then there comes a time to do. For me, the time is now.”

Bennett ran a total of 21 races in the Lites series, finishing sixth in the 2010 Lites 1 driver’s championship, while CORE autosport earned the team championship title. He purchased the Inspire Motorsports team at the beginning of the season, changing the name and the livery mid-season with the plan that he would remain driving the Lites car while fielding  an  LMPC team in 2011.  But as  2010  drew  to a close, Bennett found that securing funding and drivers was more difficult than he thought. But as so often has happened to Bennett in the past, a set of circumstances came into play that moved both he and the team forward.

“My wife says it’s a curse and a driving force at the same time, that I’m always interested in what’s next. Owning a team and doing a good job with the Lites cars was important, but I always had an eye on what was next - I was hoping I could figure out a way to make LMPC happen. It’s hard, because you have to fund the team, so the question is whether you go the sponsorship route or funded driver route – and I didn’t have experience with either.”

Team manager Morgan Brady came on board with Bennett early in the 2010 season and was the linchpin of the move into ALMS, as Brady has an extensive racing background that includes stints in Champ Car and Formula One.

“When we first started the team, there was a plan in place of moving through the ranks that ALMS has established,” said Brady. “We thought we’d stay in Lites for a few years to get our feet wet, but after winning the championship, Jon was certainly eager to go. The appeal of the LMPC class is that it allows you to get into a sophisticated car without a lot of the more complicated bits of the P2 car, so it was a good step up the ladder for us, without biting off more than we could chew in a short amount of time.”

Job one for Brady and Bennett was to secure drivers for a one-car team LMPC. But two things happened that changed those plans: the Level 5 LMPC equipment came available at a price that was impossible to pass up, thus giving the team two sets of pit equipment, and a phone call from Gunnar Jeannette.

“Thankfully, I had met Gunnar last year at Miller when he was out shaking down Frankie Montecalvo’s car,” related Bennett. “Then in January, he saw our press release about getting the car out in 35 degree weather for a test. He had been putting together this loose coalition for himself, Frankie and Ricardo. He came to see us in Charlotte, I explained my goals to him and he got to see what we looked like off the track. It just took off from there.”

Bennett’s initial plan was to do one more season in Lites, to hone his skills before moving up the ladder. But as the winter progressed, he began to wonder if he wasn’t making a mistake.

“I would think ’what if I had the chance to do a season in ALMS, and didn’t, in order to do one more season in Lites’?  Then let’s say something unexpected happens with my company that makes me defensive, and it never happens? It reminds me a little bit of if you were a very good college basketball player at the end of your junior year - do you take the risk of getting hurt in your senior year and losing the chance to make the NBA, or do stay in school? It’s a hard decision – I used to think it was an obvious call, that you should finish your education and then play basketball. But as I get older, I think the right call is to go while you can, with the promise to revisit your education. Because tomorrow is not promised.”

“We were happy with Jon’s progress last year,” said Brady. “Once he got into the LMPC car, he really rose to the challenge and was able to get his speed up and really fit. So it wasn’t much of a stretch for him to make the move. “

Bennett made the jump to the LMPC car and the team began testing in earnest early in 2011. As the team prepared for the daunting task of creating a new ALMS team and jumping directly into the prestigious 12 Hours of Sebring, Bennett relied on his Lites knowledge as a starting point.

“The learning curve has been interesting - driving the LMPC car is a lot different than driving the Lites car. It’s a bigger, faster car, but the game is different as well. You have teammates, you have longer races. So along the way, I came to the realization I had to be an athlete – Morgan set me up with a trainer and a nutritionist. Admittedly, in some of the longer Lites races, I was a little nervous about getting to the end of the race as sharp as I was going in. So heading to Sebring, knowing I was going to have stints in the car of two hours was not a problem, because I was physically ready. So it’s not just something I do now, it’s a lifestyle change for me.

“And it’s nice having a teammate – it’s nice being about to share our success. At the same time, there’s an expectation that he’ll get to participate, so there’s a responsibility not to hurt the car. Things happen, and we both understand that, but there’s a responsibility there to take care of the equipment. It’s an interesting dynamic.

“But Lites series did a good job of preparing me for what an ALMS weekend looks like, so this wasn’t so foreign. And the Lites car, in terms of performance, is about an 80% model of this car, so that wasn’t a surprise. So I’d say the Lites program is a great way in – if you were competitive in Lites, you can be competitive in the LMPC car.”

Joining Bennett in the the #05 CORE autosport Bayshore Recycling/Composite Resources ORECA FLM09 is 20-year-old Frankie Montecalvo. Montecalvo also ran in the Lites series in 2010, competing in six races with one pole and one victory before moving to Genoa Racing’s LMPC car for the remainder of the season, with Jeannette acting as a mentor.

“I’d been coaching and guiding Frankie through his racing,” said Jeannette.” To put things in perspective, Frankie went through his first Bondurant school in October of 2008. We did a test in a BMW GS car in 2009, did some historics, then some KONI Challenge, with an eye toward doing the whole season in 2010. I wanted him to get some downforce experience and after looking at a few different options, we decided on the Lites series – it was the most economical, the fastest and best bang for the buck we could find. He did pretty well, getting a pole and a win, which was great. Then a seat opened up in an LMPC car and it was too good an opportunity to pass up; he left Lites, took it slow his first weekend at Mid-Ohio, then qualified second at Mosport – out-qualifying me!

“It’s great for Frankie, running with Jon, it sort of brings things full circle in a way since they ran against each other last year. This really is the best advertisement for Lites – how well these guys are doing.”

“Lites was a great base, a great way to get used to both the tracks and the downforce in the car,” agreed Montecalvo.” I couldn’t see another way of doing it to get into a car like this.”

The future looks bright for Bennett, but of course, he’s already looking around that next corner…

“Morgan and I went to Le Mans this year on a research trip as spectators to find out a little more what the race is all about,” smiled Bennett. “We need to work out whether this is something that we really want to chase. But I look at guys like Duncan Dayton and Rob Dyson, what they’ve achieved in sports car racing. That is what I would like to see CORE autosport evolve into. We still have a long way to go and we have only taken a few baby steps but that is our long term target.”

With Bennett’s track record, look out Le Mans.

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