Sutherland Racing

Tom Sutherland Finishes 13th at San Jose Grand Prix

18-year old Los Gatos High School graduate and soon-to-be Texas Christian University freshman Tom Sutherland of Los Gatos, California, raced the #2 Champ Car Atlantic car for Jensen MotorSport in front of a hometown crowd at the San Jose Grand Prix July 27 - 29, 2007.

The San Jose Grand Prix, the eleventh race of the 2007 Cooper Tires Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda, took the drivers on a 1.5 mile circuit where they hit speeds of over 150 miles per hour as their cars sped down Almaden Avenue before twisting and turning through the skyscrapers and palm trees of downtown San Jose. "I was thrilled to race in the San Jose Grand Prix for the second time of my racing career. I want to thank ClickAway and Jensen MotorSport for giving me the opportunity to race in front of my hometown crowd once again," said Sutherland.

Sutherland was 7th fastest during the first practice round, just .455 seconds off the day's leader, but in the qualifying round finished 20th and therefore started the race in 20th position. The race was marked by a number of incidents, and debris from one of those knocked Sutherland's right front wing flap loose in lap 6, with the wing flap coming off the car in lap 10. Despite all the chaos on the track, by lap 31 Sutherland was able to work his way up to 9th and was gaining on Justin Sofio by 2/10ths of a second per lap.
In lap 31 it became clear that Sutherland's right rear tire had been punctured, and was slowly losing air. In spite of this, he was still able to take 13th for the day. "The race was intense! All I wanted to do was keep my nose clean and finish the race, and I knew I would do well if I did just that. I had a bit of bad luck with the rear right tire going flat 31 laps into the race, but that's racing and I'm happy I was able to bring it home under those circumstances."

Last year, Sutherland took second place in Round 9 of the Formula BMW USA Series at the San Jose Grand Prix, finishing just .668 seconds behind winner Reed Stevens. With a total of 32 starts and finishes, Sutherland holds the Formula BMW USA record for most starts and finishes, and over the course of his Formula BMW USA career he racked up 19 Top 10 finishes and 3 Top 5 finishes.

This season, Sutherland raced at a number of venues leading up to the San Jose Grand Prix, including Las Vegas, where he started 13th, got as high as 9th, and then got caught in debris from another crash to finish 15th; Long Beach, where he started 16th and finished 14th; Houston, where he ran into a curb in an effort to avoid hitting a car he was about to lap; Portland, where in the first race he spun and got stuck in gravel, but in the second race started 22nd and finished 17th; Cleveland, where he started 17th and finished 15th; Mont Tremblant, where he was hit from behind by Richard Heistand which resulted in a broken rear suspension; Toronto, where a heavy deluge on the opening lap sent him spinning into a wall on lap 2; and Edmonton, where in the first race he tried unsuccessfully to pass Mike Forest which resulted in him crashing into a wall, and in the second race he started 20th and finished 14th.