Gurney, Fogarty racing Grand-Am to prominence

	With Jon Fogarty teaming with Alex Gurney to pilot the No. 99, the Gainsco team has struck a rhythm few teams can match. Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR

Chemistry is a delicate recipe. Drivers and chiefs and owners don't automatically start winning races as soon as they are partnered together. Sometimes it takes days, months, or even a year to click.

Take the case of Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series. After quietly competing in their first few months together and finishing sixth in the points, this season the two have won three straight races and four of eight in the top class, Daytona prototype.

They've also made few headlines.

Sports car racing in the U.S. struggles for attention in the media and in the grandstands. Put NASCAR's Nextel Cup at road courses like Watkins Glen and Infineon, the stands are filled and the race watched by millions on national television. It isn't road racing that Americans don't like, just as long as they know the drivers, teams and sponsors.

Some history is required. Sports cars have always been a subculture. The Daytona 24-hour race has never approached the stature of the Daytona 500, but in the 1980s and early '90s, IMSA's Camel GT Series surged sports car racing's popularity. After John Bishop sold IMSA, the series collapsed during a series of ownership and management changes.

What emerged was two series, the Grand-Am -- formed by NASCAR's France family with other investors -- and American Le Mans, owned by Don Panoz. They split the two crown jewels: Grand-Am got Daytona while ALMS got Sebring's 12-Hour. And they've gone down different roads philosophically, reflected in the technology.

While ALMS adopted a more open rulebook governing its cars, which allows for more innovation -- and higher costs -- the Daytona Prototype was Grand-Am's Car of Tomorrow, built to rigid rules to contain cost and promote competition. The DPs debuted in 2003 and it has done the job. Multiple engine manufacturers -- Pontiac, Lexus, BMW and Porsche -- race in the series.

Even more than cost containment, Grand-Am's tallest hurdle has been trying to develop driver recognition. Sports cars have always had a large contingent of foreign drivers while the best Americans have migrated to NASCAR and Indy cars. That hasn't left many on the sports care circuit for American fans to support. But that's where NASCAR's influence is making itself felt as the series looks to make the drivers the stars, rather than the cars, as so often has been the case in sports cars.

Both in their prime at 32, Gurney and Fogarty, though, are fast and they're Americans. They're open-wheel refugees who don't want to go oval racing and were blocked from a lack of opportunity from getting into the Champ Car World Series. They're exactly what the doctor ordered.

Gurney and Fogarty have been brilliant in Gainsco/Bob Stalling Racing's Pontiac-powered Riley. They won their and the team's first race at Mexico City this year and have dominated the past three, winning from pole. They won by more than 30 seconds at Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio.