Support from JG Wentworth Racing has helped Sheena Monk remain positive in the wake of a tumultuous number of weeks in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series for herself and Kyle Marcelli.
A crash at Sebring wrote off a Toyota Supra GT4 and forced the team to move to PF Racing and the Ford Mustang GT4 for Laguna Seca, where their race ended with another heavily-damaged car after a second crash for Marcelli.
“Fortunately for me, JG Wentworth has been incredibly supportive of the program,” Monk said. “They’re really about furthering females and equality so I’m extremely fortunate that they’ve continued to support us even through all of this and these downtrends right now.
“The way I think about it, if we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all. At some point, our good luck is going to come.”
Prior to Marcelli’s crash, the team’s No. 877 JG Wentworth Mustang was inside the top 15 but had been running as high as fifth before Monk was hit from behind in the Corkscrew and sent into the gravel trap.
“For the quality of this series and what you expect here, there’s just been a terrible amount of contact,” she said. “I think it’s inappropriate, and I think more should be done about it. We wrote a car off at the last race and we’ve got tremendous damage to a car now. In three races we’ve just incurred unprecedented amounts of crash damage.”
The team’s weekend started off slow as the pair worked to come to grips with the Ford Mustang, particularly Monk, who had never driven the car before.
“PF Racing was great; I was glad that they took us under their awning,” she said. “In the first two practices, I did not feel very comfortable in the car, it felt super foreign to me.” After looking at the data from the practice sessions, the team made some adjustments to the car that got it into a much better state.
Monk and Marcelli sit 31st in the Grand Sport championship standings, putting them third-from-last among drivers who have completed all three races this season.
