No. 39 The DigiTrust Group/Adam's Polishes/Fox River Coffee/Sherab-Khandro.com Porsche 997 co-drivers Duncan Ende and Spencer Pumpelly came home sixth, with the No. 41 Cohen Financial/Wolf-Tec Inc./www.WTInc.com/Ludwig-Motorsports/Pillers Porsche 997 co-drivers Scott Schroeder and Peter Ludwig finishing 12th. Both cars competed in the Grand Sport (GS) class.

"The cars ran flawlessly," said TRG team manager Jason Myers. "There were zero issues with the cars all weekend long, and that really is a testament to how professional and proficient our crew and mechanics are. As usual, the drivers were professional and extremely competitive. The only hiccup during the weekend came at about an hour into the race, when during a yellow flag, there was some confusion from the officials about what class could pit and when. In the ensuing confusion, certain GS cars entered the pits when they were closed and were able to perform pit stops without being penalized. This allowed them to gain track position and ultimately swayed the outcome of the race. I hope that next time around, the pit order is called correctly and that those not following the rules will be penalized."

Ende started the No. 39 Porsche from the 10th position and held his own throughout his stint behind the wheel before handing the controls over to Pumpelly to finish it out. After taking over the car in 15th place, Pumpelly put together a strong charge to the front, working his way up as high as fourth before a tough battle on the final lap left him sixth when the checkered flag dropped.

The crew turned out a really fantastic car for the race," Ende said. "I think we probably had the best handling car in the entire field on race day. Unfortunately, Mosport really let the higher horsepower cars stretch their legs and whenever I'd get held up or hung out by traffic, the Mustangs and BMWs would be able to motor right past me on the back straight. I lost a few spots early in my stint, but as the laps ticked by I managed to get some of them back and I think when I came in to turn the car over to Spencer I was right back around where I had started."

It was the second consecutive top-six performance for the No. 39 duo, as Pumpelly and Ende also finished second in Round 2 of the 10-race 2008 KONI Challenge Series at Lime Rock Park last month.

"For a track that doesn't favor the Porsche, we did a good job of surviving," Pumpelly said. "Sixth place gets us good points and allows us to move to tracks where Grand-Am rules put us at less of a disadvantage. For the third time in three races the TRG crew was fantastic and a big reason we were able to keep the car competitive."

Ende started 13th in the No. 39 DigiTrust Group/Adam's Polishes/Fox River Coffee/Sherab Khandro.com Porsche 997 and quickly fell six positions at the start due to getting caught behind a slower car. But, as the field began to spread out, Ende began picking up positions and even had the No. 39 machine in the top-10 before handing it over to co-driver Pumpelly.

On lap 51, Ende brought the No. 39 Porsche 997 to pit lane for a green flag pit stop that included a driver change. Now with Pumpelly behind the wheel the team had some work to do because Pumpelly fell from 10th to 22nd before all of the pit stops had cycled through.

"My opening stint went pretty well," Ende said of his start. "I lost several spots at the start. I tucked in behind the wrong guy in turn one and people went around us on the outside in turns one and two and then on the inside in three. But, then it was a pretty steady stint. I was basically behind one of the Turner and one of the Automatic cars the whole time. It was just a waiting game - waiting for one of them to make a mistake. But, it was pretty hard to pass.

"It was a steady stint until one of the Automatic cars decided to out-brake himself. He hit the side of the curb and then hit our car. It did not put us out so we counted ourselves lucky."

Undaunted by his position, Pumpelly managed to knife through traffic setting faster lap times as the race went on. In fact, Pumpelly set the team's fastest race lap with a 0:59.029 on lap 102 of the 140-lap event.

On lap125, Pumpelly was running third when he passed the No. 37 Mustang GT for second. With only 15 laps remaining and with the leader having a nearly 12 second lead over the field, Pumpelly did his best to chase down the leader. But, he simply ran out of time cutting the eventual race-winner's margin of victory down to 2.302-seconds.

Pumpelly then jumped into the cockpit and he and the No. 39 team used essentially the same strategy as the No. 41 team. Pumpelly moved up to second place at one point in the first half of his double stint and pitted under green with one hour and one minute remaining while running in fifth place.

He resumed in 21st position but quickly worked his way forward and when the other leaders pitted on Lap 62, Pumpelly found himself in third place for the Lap 65 restart. When leader Doug Goad had a brief off-course excursion on the first green flag lap, Pumpelly moved into second place. Two laps later, Pumpelly charged past Tom Milner and into the lead with less than 20 minutes remaining.

Just a few seconds later, however, disaster struck the No. 39 team, as the car slowed to a stop on the Daytona Superstretch with the same engine management problems that felled the No. 41 team a day earlier. Pumpelly and Ende wound up 32nd in the GS class and 70th overall.

“We did all that work in the offseason, and the one thing we just can’t get under control is our engine management issues,” Buckler said. “The car was great, even with the extra weight. We did all these other things, and Spencer just drove the wheels off the thing. Duncan did a fantastic job keeping the car up front. What a great team! The guys worked so hard, but no matter what, we just run too hot and we blow up. That’s what happened, right as we took the lead. I’m pretty sure we would have kept it.”

“We were having a great race,” added Ende. “Our strategy was playing absolutely to perfection, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t finish. It’s really frustrating. We’re not really sure what did it. We think it was just running too hot for too long, and that’s been our problem since the program started last year. I thought we were making progress, but each of our cars lost an engine this weekend. Unfortunately for us, ours went right after we took the lead in the race with 20 minutes to go. I don’t know if we would have won, but it would have been close. I think we would have been up there, so it’s a tough pill to swallow.”

The action gets started on Friday afternoon when Duncan Ende and Spencer Pumpelly begin their run at the 2008 Koni Challenge championship. The No. 39 Digitrust Group/Adams Polishes/Fox River Coffee Porsche 997 is set to take on a field approaching 100 cars in the Fresh From Florida 200 along the high banking of the world famous Daytona International Speedway.

The following day, Duncan Ende makes his Rolex Series debut aboard the No. 63 TRG Porsche GT3 Cup car in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Teaming with Ron Yarab Jr., Pierre Bourque, and Hima Maher, Duncan and his codrivers will pilot the 420 horsepower, 175 mph GT car twice around the clock in one of the most historic and prestigious tests of car and driver speed and endurance in the world.

The Rolex 24 will be televised live on Fox on Saturday the 26th, starting with a half hour pre-race show at 1:00 pm Eastern, 10:00 am Pacific, and continuing through the wave of the green flag for 90 minutes of coverage before turning over to Speed Channel, who will bring you another 15.5 hours of coverage up to and past the fall of the checkered flag on Sunday afternoon. Don/'t miss the bright red No. 6 car take on the best field of sportscar racers in the world on the legendary 3.56 mile Daytona track!

Duncan Ende and Spencer Pumpelly return to the airwaves with the Koni Challenge series aboard the No. 39 Porsche. Speed Channel will bring you the Fresh From Florida 200, Saturday February 2nd, at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific. Speed will be airing six Koni Challenge races throughout the year, bringing you some of the most exciting and diverse production based car racing in the world!