birth_place nationality birth_date image article_title name
paris -lrb- france -rrb- france french 16 march 1962 24-hours-le-mans-03 . jpg franck fréon
 franck fréon
franck fréon

franck fréon -lrb- born march 16 , 1962 in paris -rrb- is a french race car driver .
he began his career in the french renault 5 turbo championship in 1986 and 1987 then competed in french formula three from 1988 to 1989 .
in 1990 he competed in international formula 3000 and failed to qualify for four of his first five race attempts , but was credited with 5th place in his first successful start although he did not finish the race .
he subsequently left his team and joined another for the final two races of the year where he qualified but failed to point .
his fifth place was good enough for 19th in the championship .
he moved to the united states and participated in indy lights from 1991 to 1993 capturing 4 wins and finishing runner up in both the 1992 and 1993 standings , behind robbie buhl and bryan herta respectively .
however , he had trouble finding a good team in cart , making 4 starts -lrb- and 1 dnf -rrb- for 3 different teams in the 1994 season with a best finish of 12th in his cart debut at the long beach grand prix .
1995 was n't much better as fréon finished 15th in the long beach season opener , then failed to qualify for the indianapolis 500 in a 3 year old lola chassis and returned 5 months later only to fail to make the show at laguna seca raceway .
franck fréon then ventured into endurance car racing , driving marginally competitive lmp vehicles in the 24 hours of le mans from 1995 to 1999 .
he then signed onto the chevrolet factory team to drive the chevrolet corvette c5-r .
he teamed with ron fellows and johnny o'connell to win the 24 hours of daytona in 2000 .
he continued with the team until 2004 .
nearing his retirement , franck fréon leveraged his knowledge , experience and passion for cars to establish his business pumpkin fine cars & exotics in 1998 .
