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GRAND-AM
IN THE COCKPIT: Ricky Taylor, Monterey
With tough racing at Laguna Seca, series mergers, and some V8 racing in Australia in the news, there is no shortage of things to talk about...
Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli returned to action with a new livery on their Corvette DP at Monterey. (Photo: LAT)
With tough racing at Laguna Seca, series mergers, and some V8 racing in Australia in the news, there is no shortage of things to talk about in this edition of my blog. A lot of exciting news and I can’t wait to get going, firstly today, with a quick look back at our last race at Laguna Seca.
We had high hopes of a solid performance at Laguna Seca going into this weekend’s race due to the nature of the track and the fact we have been very competitive on the shorter, high-downforce tracks. By the time the first session ended on Friday morning, though, it was apparent we were going to have our work cut out for us. We really struggled with tire wear, which made it difficult to make progress with car setup as the car balance is constantly changing due to the loss of grip.
When we did go to new tires, we were able to close the gap but still struggled with the tire wear and the gap to the leaders would grow as the tires wore. Come race time, we would start fourth and knew this would be a tough race and it would be down to strategy to help us achieve a solid result. We began the race immediately saving tires in order to set ourselves up as well as possible for the end of the race.
Throughout the race, we did not have the pace of the top-five cars, but the guys put together a great strategy and gave us the newest possible tires at the end of the race. A yellow toward the end of the race could have put us in a position to race hard and make progress into the top-five.
But the yellow did not fall for us but, considering the difficulties throughout the weekend, we were very happy to take our seventh-place finish and head to our final round at Lime Rock.
Some of the biggest sports car racing news of my lifetime also came out during our break before Laguna. The announcement of the merger between the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am is extremely exciting and I think should be a great development in the world of racing.
From my perspective, I think it is great for all drivers as this will bring all of the top teams into one series with more attention on all classes, which will hopefully create a more secure environment for drivers and teams to survive. With so many top teams in the series and such a high level of competition, I think we will see some great racing and I think that is what all drivers want – to win races knowing you have beaten the best.
There are so many questions still out there: How will the classes be organized? Will tires be open? How will Sebring and Petit Le Mans be run? Without a doubt, we will have a spectacular schedule with some of the best events in the world, but will we still be able to compete for the overall win?
I have always hoped to see the DPs with more power and downforce, so hopefully we will see the DPs brought up to LMP2 pace instead of slowing them down to us. No matter what happens, if there is a true merge where the best of both series is applied, we are in store for one of the best sports car racing series ever.
Also announced last week, I will be competing this year in the Gold Coast 600 at Surfers Paradise in Australia and will be driving for Garry Rogers Motorsport. I have been a huge fan of the V8 Supercar Series and the Gold Coast 600, so to drive for a great team like Garry Rogers Motorsport is a dream come true.
I think there will be a major learning curve to adapting to those cars as I have not driven anything similar. I have been doing everything I can at home to best prepare myself for what it is going to be like over there.
We even moved the gear lever to the left side on our simulator so we can drive the V8 Supercars on iRacing with a closer driving environment to get used to the left-hand-side gear lever. I cannot wait to get over there and get a feel for driving one of those Holden beasts.
For now, we are 100-percent focused on Lime Rock and finishing off 2012 with a win to give us some momentum going into the 2013 Rolex Series season.
Ricky Taylor, 22-year-old son of three-time sports car champion and team owner Wayne Taylor, embarks on his third full season co-driving with veteran Max Angelelli in the No. 10 SunTrust Corvette Dallara of Wayne Taylor Racing. Follow him on Twitter: @RickyTaylor10 or at http://www.suntrustracing.com
We had high hopes of a solid performance at Laguna Seca going into this weekend’s race due to the nature of the track and the fact we have been very competitive on the shorter, high-downforce tracks. By the time the first session ended on Friday morning, though, it was apparent we were going to have our work cut out for us. We really struggled with tire wear, which made it difficult to make progress with car setup as the car balance is constantly changing due to the loss of grip.
When we did go to new tires, we were able to close the gap but still struggled with the tire wear and the gap to the leaders would grow as the tires wore. Come race time, we would start fourth and knew this would be a tough race and it would be down to strategy to help us achieve a solid result. We began the race immediately saving tires in order to set ourselves up as well as possible for the end of the race.
Throughout the race, we did not have the pace of the top-five cars, but the guys put together a great strategy and gave us the newest possible tires at the end of the race. A yellow toward the end of the race could have put us in a position to race hard and make progress into the top-five.
But the yellow did not fall for us but, considering the difficulties throughout the weekend, we were very happy to take our seventh-place finish and head to our final round at Lime Rock.
Some of the biggest sports car racing news of my lifetime also came out during our break before Laguna. The announcement of the merger between the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am is extremely exciting and I think should be a great development in the world of racing.
From my perspective, I think it is great for all drivers as this will bring all of the top teams into one series with more attention on all classes, which will hopefully create a more secure environment for drivers and teams to survive. With so many top teams in the series and such a high level of competition, I think we will see some great racing and I think that is what all drivers want – to win races knowing you have beaten the best.
There are so many questions still out there: How will the classes be organized? Will tires be open? How will Sebring and Petit Le Mans be run? Without a doubt, we will have a spectacular schedule with some of the best events in the world, but will we still be able to compete for the overall win?
I have always hoped to see the DPs with more power and downforce, so hopefully we will see the DPs brought up to LMP2 pace instead of slowing them down to us. No matter what happens, if there is a true merge where the best of both series is applied, we are in store for one of the best sports car racing series ever.
Also announced last week, I will be competing this year in the Gold Coast 600 at Surfers Paradise in Australia and will be driving for Garry Rogers Motorsport. I have been a huge fan of the V8 Supercar Series and the Gold Coast 600, so to drive for a great team like Garry Rogers Motorsport is a dream come true.
I think there will be a major learning curve to adapting to those cars as I have not driven anything similar. I have been doing everything I can at home to best prepare myself for what it is going to be like over there.
We even moved the gear lever to the left side on our simulator so we can drive the V8 Supercars on iRacing with a closer driving environment to get used to the left-hand-side gear lever. I cannot wait to get over there and get a feel for driving one of those Holden beasts.
For now, we are 100-percent focused on Lime Rock and finishing off 2012 with a win to give us some momentum going into the 2013 Rolex Series season.
Ricky Taylor, 22-year-old son of three-time sports car champion and team owner Wayne Taylor, embarks on his third full season co-driving with veteran Max Angelelli in the No. 10 SunTrust Corvette Dallara of Wayne Taylor Racing. Follow him on Twitter: @RickyTaylor10 or at http://www.suntrustracing.com
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