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GRAND-AM
GRAND-AM: Taylor & Angelelli Win Lime Rock; Pruett & Rojas DP Champs
Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli closed a frustrating 2012 season with a win at Lime Rock while Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas took the DP title.
Ricky Taylor emerged from an extended one-on-one battle all the way to the checkered flag with Antonio Garcia at Lime Rock Park to win the final race of the 2012 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Championship with co-driver Max Angelelli. The result keeps SunTrust Racing’s perfect Lime Rock Park win record intact as the team has won every race at the track since the Daytona Prototypes first staged a race at the 1.53-mile road course in 2010.
Garcia and his pole-winning co-driver Richard Westbrook finished second as Spirit of Daytona celebrated a fourth podium appearance to close out a breakthrough season.
While SunTrust Racing was happy to extend a streak, the GAINSCO squad was chagrined to break one as the team finished third, marking the first time since the 2006 season that the team had not won at least one Rolex Series race.
A seventh place finish for Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett was all the duo needed to secure their third consecutive GRAND-AM Championship.
In Rolex GT competition, John Edwards and Robin Liddell combined for a win in the Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R after Andy Lally suffered late race disappointment for the second day in a row as he was forced to pit for fuel with all of two minutes remaining in the race.
Finishing second was the APR Motorsport Audi R8 of Jim Norman and Dion von Moltke as the No. 51 brought Audi its debut appearance on the Rolex Series podium since the brand first joined the Rolex Series for the full 2012 campaign.
Rounding out an international podium in the GT ranks was the No. 63 Ferrari 458 of Johannes van Overbeek and teammate Allessandro Balzan as the duo locked up the Manufacturer Championship for Ferrari as the famed marque made a deep impression in its first season of Rolex competition.
The final restart on lap 138 set the stage for the shootout. A hungry pack of DP’s fought for positions as there was still a lot to play for in the championship standings. But it was the Corvette train of Taylor and Garcia that? gapped the field.
Taylor, who suffered from some uncharacteristic errors earlier in the year, drove a flawless race as he fended off Garcia’s advances to bring SunTrust their 21st Rolex Series win.
“I'm shaking,” said Taylor, who with Angelelli led 92 of the 167 laps. “I don't think I took a full breath for the last 45 minutes. It was completely flat out every lap and everybody was clean. Our car was amazing. I just can't thank the whole SunTrust/ Toshiba team enough. Thank you to everyone involved with this Corvette, I'm so happy to represent them and I can't wait until next year.”
The battle was a close one, but in a year that has seen more than a fair share of hard-shouldered racing, was perfectly clean as the two Corvette machines raced to the checkered flag.
“I started to catch him and I had good momentum and was working him quite hard because he didn’t have the tires under him,” said Garcia. “But after the safety car, he was fast again, and he did a great job defending and with the traffic so I have to say congrats-- he did a great job.”
As the race entered its final stages, the Magnus squad was looking for a GT Class win to bookend the season, but the No. 44 had to stop for fuel just as Liddell had reeled him in to take the lead.
“For sure I knew he was very close (on fuel) and we were expecting to have a stumble,” said Liddell, who won the 2011 LRP race with Stevenson. “I just kept pushing as hard as I could. We had a great scrap. We were slightly quicker I think at the end when he was saving fuel or whether we were just better on the tires. It was a hard race. John (Edwards) did a great job with limited practice - he qualified the car on pole. Stevenson Motorsports and Chevrolet with the Camaro, absolutely brilliant flawless season for these guys. They've done such a great job.”
After the 2011 Rolex visit to Lime Rock Park netted but one caution flag, the Ganassi group altered their normal strategy to make sure they would have a clear path to the championship as Pruett opened the race before turning it over to Rojas, who turned the controls back over to Pruett to take to the finish.
While the championship was still in play as the race opened, the advantage that Pruett and Rojas held was never truly threatened as the rival Starworks entry of Ryan Dalziel came home sixth.
“It’s great to be at Lime Rock Park and great to be champions,” offered Pruett. “I’m happy for the whole Ganassi organization. This was really an incredibly difficult and challenging season. Today we changed it up, this is a difficult track and we wanted to keep both drivers fresh. I couldn’t be happier to get this championship won--we had to dig deep and the season really brought this team to a whole new level. I enjoyed the challenge and it brought us together as a team.”
The race also confirmed the Manufacturers Championship for Chevrolet after Corvettes won eight of the 13 races, and solidified the Chassis Manufacturers Championship for Riley Technologies.
Alex Popow added yet another title to his remarkable 2012 season as he won the 2012 Jim Trueman Award, with Emil Assentato locking in the Akin Award to go with his Rolex GT Class Championship.
Lime Rock Rolex Series: Race Results.
With experience at Skip Barber Racing School, Lime Rock Park, and several IndyCar teams, Matt Cleary has covered open wheel and sports car racing for over a decade. Working for Sunday Group Management, Cleary also provides strategic motorsports consulting for a range of clients in the sport. You can follow him on Twitter @sundaygroup
Garcia and his pole-winning co-driver Richard Westbrook finished second as Spirit of Daytona celebrated a fourth podium appearance to close out a breakthrough season.
While SunTrust Racing was happy to extend a streak, the GAINSCO squad was chagrined to break one as the team finished third, marking the first time since the 2006 season that the team had not won at least one Rolex Series race.
A seventh place finish for Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett was all the duo needed to secure their third consecutive GRAND-AM Championship.
In Rolex GT competition, John Edwards and Robin Liddell combined for a win in the Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R after Andy Lally suffered late race disappointment for the second day in a row as he was forced to pit for fuel with all of two minutes remaining in the race.
Finishing second was the APR Motorsport Audi R8 of Jim Norman and Dion von Moltke as the No. 51 brought Audi its debut appearance on the Rolex Series podium since the brand first joined the Rolex Series for the full 2012 campaign.
Rounding out an international podium in the GT ranks was the No. 63 Ferrari 458 of Johannes van Overbeek and teammate Allessandro Balzan as the duo locked up the Manufacturer Championship for Ferrari as the famed marque made a deep impression in its first season of Rolex competition.
The final restart on lap 138 set the stage for the shootout. A hungry pack of DP’s fought for positions as there was still a lot to play for in the championship standings. But it was the Corvette train of Taylor and Garcia that? gapped the field.
Taylor, who suffered from some uncharacteristic errors earlier in the year, drove a flawless race as he fended off Garcia’s advances to bring SunTrust their 21st Rolex Series win.
“I'm shaking,” said Taylor, who with Angelelli led 92 of the 167 laps. “I don't think I took a full breath for the last 45 minutes. It was completely flat out every lap and everybody was clean. Our car was amazing. I just can't thank the whole SunTrust/ Toshiba team enough. Thank you to everyone involved with this Corvette, I'm so happy to represent them and I can't wait until next year.”
The battle was a close one, but in a year that has seen more than a fair share of hard-shouldered racing, was perfectly clean as the two Corvette machines raced to the checkered flag.
“I started to catch him and I had good momentum and was working him quite hard because he didn’t have the tires under him,” said Garcia. “But after the safety car, he was fast again, and he did a great job defending and with the traffic so I have to say congrats-- he did a great job.”
As the race entered its final stages, the Magnus squad was looking for a GT Class win to bookend the season, but the No. 44 had to stop for fuel just as Liddell had reeled him in to take the lead.
“For sure I knew he was very close (on fuel) and we were expecting to have a stumble,” said Liddell, who won the 2011 LRP race with Stevenson. “I just kept pushing as hard as I could. We had a great scrap. We were slightly quicker I think at the end when he was saving fuel or whether we were just better on the tires. It was a hard race. John (Edwards) did a great job with limited practice - he qualified the car on pole. Stevenson Motorsports and Chevrolet with the Camaro, absolutely brilliant flawless season for these guys. They've done such a great job.”
After the 2011 Rolex visit to Lime Rock Park netted but one caution flag, the Ganassi group altered their normal strategy to make sure they would have a clear path to the championship as Pruett opened the race before turning it over to Rojas, who turned the controls back over to Pruett to take to the finish.
While the championship was still in play as the race opened, the advantage that Pruett and Rojas held was never truly threatened as the rival Starworks entry of Ryan Dalziel came home sixth.
“It’s great to be at Lime Rock Park and great to be champions,” offered Pruett. “I’m happy for the whole Ganassi organization. This was really an incredibly difficult and challenging season. Today we changed it up, this is a difficult track and we wanted to keep both drivers fresh. I couldn’t be happier to get this championship won--we had to dig deep and the season really brought this team to a whole new level. I enjoyed the challenge and it brought us together as a team.”
The race also confirmed the Manufacturers Championship for Chevrolet after Corvettes won eight of the 13 races, and solidified the Chassis Manufacturers Championship for Riley Technologies.
Alex Popow added yet another title to his remarkable 2012 season as he won the 2012 Jim Trueman Award, with Emil Assentato locking in the Akin Award to go with his Rolex GT Class Championship.
Lime Rock Rolex Series: Race Results.
With experience at Skip Barber Racing School, Lime Rock Park, and several IndyCar teams, Matt Cleary has covered open wheel and sports car racing for over a decade. Working for Sunday Group Management, Cleary also provides strategic motorsports consulting for a range of clients in the sport. You can follow him on Twitter @sundaygroup
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