Fogarty and Gurney finally broke through in 2008. (Grand-Am photo) » More Photos

YOUR INBOX WAS EMPTY, NOW IT’S FULL It was former San Francisco 49ers quarterback John Brody who famously said of the Bay Area fans “They love you, win or tie.” Another man with Bay Area ties, Jon Fogarty can empathize with Brody, now that GAINSCO/Stallings Racing has broken its “duck” in 2008, winning for the first time this year. Last year, of course, Fogarty and Alex Gurney piloted the GAINSCO/Pontiac Riley to seven wins and the 2007 Rolex Series championship. This year saw the same combination go winless until this, the seventh race of the season even as arch rivals Scott Pruett and Luiz Diaz have sprinted to a commanding lead in the Rolex Series standings on the strength of fourth wins for Telmex Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.

“Last year every weekend after we’d won a race, Alex and I would get back and find hundreds of emails from Gainsco employees congratulating us and telling what a great job we’d done,” said Fogarty. “Those emails have tailed off a bit this year but I guess we can expect to get lots more of them now.”

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES A year ago, Leh Keen made an early exit from the Mid-Ohio Grand-Am race, winding up in the hospital after a spectacular crash in the warm-up in Turn Seven that left him with a broken collarbone. A year later that would be the same Leh Keen standing atop the GT podium, along with Farnbacher Loles teammate Eric Lux.

“I was happy just to make it through the warm-up today,” said Keen. “Now to win, obviously, I couldn’t be happier. Yesterday the first couple of times I went through the turn it was a little tough. But now that’s all just a memory.”