IMSA: Wayne Taylor Racing wins the Petit Le Mans battle, Action Express triumphs in the TUDOR war

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Jordan Taylor, Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli brought Petit Le Mans glory back to the Taylor family 16 years after their father won the inaugural edition of this event. Wayne Taylor saw his sons and their former driving coach drive the No. 10 Corvette DP to victory by 11 seconds over inaugural TUDOR Championship title-winners Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi of Action Express Racing, who were joined by their Rolex 24-winning compadre Sebastien Bourdais (BELOW).

RACER VIDEO INTERVIEWS

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• Kuno Wittmer 2014 GT Le Mans Champion

• Dane Cameron 2014 GT Daytona Champion

In truth, the win could have been by a far greater margin, but a late caution period to rescue erstwhile PC-class leader Sean Rayhall bunched up the field around the dauntingly fast 2.54-mile Road Atlanta course. But Jordan Taylor had cars between himself and Barbosa on that final chase…and he knew he had the edge in pace. From sundown to the end, the WTR car was simply quicker, and when Ricky handed over to Jordan for the final time, nothing Fittipaldi or Barbosa did could prevent the No. 10 car from stretching out to a half-minute lead.

While these two cars were head to head virtually throughout the 10 hour race, what kept them clear of the pack was simply the lack of major errors from the six drivers. Spirit of Daytona Racing looked at least a match for the Action Express No. 5, but collided with the Flying Lizard Audi as the slower car was getting a wavearound. That sent the SDR Corvette DP behind the wall. It would re-emerge to finish 19 laps down but 7th in class.

The second AX Racing machine ran third for a while but soon after a restart, Jon Fogarty drove it into the right-rear fender of Ben Keating’s GTD Viper and sustained significant front-end damage. It was eventually retired.  And despite starting at the back, and despite temporarily losing boost, the OAK Racing Ligier-Honda driven by Gustavo Yacaman, Alex Brundle and Ho-Pin Tung might have been a strong victory contender. However, while going around the outside of the DeltaWing on a restart, Yacaman tightened his line too much and was ejected off the track and into a tire wall.

And so third place in Prototypes went to Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, the Riley-Ford EcoBoost having a relatively lonely run. It didn’t have the pace in traffic of the Corvettes but a bigger problem still was when it got thumped into a spin by an over-eager Markus Palttala in the Turner Motorsports BMW Z4 of GTD. Thereafter, it was down a lap, but Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas and Scott Dixon drove well and had no threat from behind as they were four laps clear of the DeltaWing.

The heavily revised DWC13 – with front wing, dive planes and manta-ray top wing on the engine cover – looked more competitive than it ever had before, and Katherine Legge, Andy Meyrick and Indy Lights champion Gabby Chaves deserved their fourth place. Legge’s fastest lap, incidentally, was just half a second off the fastest lap of the winning car.

GTLM was a fascinating affair from beginning to last (as usual), and in the end it was the Falken Tire Porsche that prevailed, defending its Petit Le Mans title from 2013. The blue-and-teal machine benefited from inspired performances by Wolf Henzler, Bryan Sellers and third man Marco Holzer (BELOW) and it was chased over the line by the Porsche North America No. 912 entry, piloted by Pat Long, Michael Christensen and Earl Bamber. That was enough to earn Porsche the Manufacturers’ title in class.

But the turning point of the GTLM Drivers’ championship and maybe race day glory,

was a bizarre incident in pit lane

. Pierre Kaffer in the Risi Competizione Ferrari had stopped for the red light as the field streamed past on track. Patrick Pilet in the No. 911 Porsche NA entry – which Nick Tandy had raced with great verve at the front of the field – was distracted by something in the cockpit and looked up too late to avoid clouting the pretty posterior of the 458 Italia, which bounced him into the path of the No. 3 Corvette Racing entry. A second collision might have been avoidable…except Jan Magnussen was also apparently looking down at something inside the Vette, and broke up the front-left corner of the Vette on the tail of the Porsche.

That meant Antonio Garcia, Magnussen’s co-driver, was no longer in the championship running, as the C7.R fell three laps down during repairs. The 911 Porsche, despite its front-end damage, did stay on the GTLM-class lead lap but the hasty patch-up job did harm its aerodynamics, and another pit stop for further tape-ups – and a harmless but time-consuming off by Tandy – eventually dropped it a lap behind at the checkers.

Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner ably fought Corvette’s corner in the No. 4 car but it was the No. 91 Dodge SRT Viper GTS-R that clinched third at the checkered flag, thanks to the efforts of Marc Goossens, 2012 IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay…and Kuno Wittmer, who thus earned the Drivers title. His usual co-driver, Jonathan Bomarito, had remained in the No. 93 for this race, as Team SRT took the hard but sensible decision to double their chances of earning this title by splitting their championship leaders.

And unfortunately for Bomarito, it was the 93 that got hit by Fate’s bullets. A gearbox leak was eventually resolved but the car being dumped off the jacks before the left-rear tire changer had finished, not only caused a very long green-flag pit stop but also brought the car back in for check-ups. In the end, cumulative time spent on pit road for the Dominik Farnbacher/Rob Bell/Bomarito-driven Viper was almost 3mins longer than for its sister car and so it finished sixth in class, two laps down. And of course, given the travails of Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette, Wittmer would have shared the championship with Bomarito had he remained in the No. 93….

Prototype Challenge was a frequently exciting affair, although as usual, the amateurs in class contributed to too many of the 14 caution periods and local yellows. Goes with the territory, but it’s nonetheless alarming at times.

Rayhall’s final-stint crash out of the lead made anyone watching the action more than a little jumpy…and also sad for the 8Star Motorsport team which had done everything right and nothing wrong both in terms of pace and tactics. Tom Kimber-Smith was fast and solid, and Rayhall was basically as outstanding as he’s been all year. But they were matched blow-for-blow by Gunnar Jeannette/Frankie Montecalvo (PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports) and the PC champion combo of Jon Bennett/Colin Braun and third man James Gue in the CORE autosport No. 54 entry…

And yet none of these won. Instead it was Renger van der Zande/Mirco Schultis/ Alex Popow who prevailed in the No. 8 Starworks entry, 11sec clear of Braun at the checkered flag, with Jeannette a further 37sec down.

In GTD, the race pace of Townsend Bell in the AIM Autosport Ferrari looked to have pushed him into title contention in the car he shared with Bill Sweedler and Conrad Grunewald. But it was Dane Cameron who had the last laugh, despite the Turner Motorsports BMW never having the ultimate pace to fight with the best of the Porsches. One less pit stop was key to Cameron taking the title with a fourth-place finish in the car shared with Palttala and Christopher Nygaard.

Click on the thumbnails below for larger images (Victory Lane images by LAT; all others by Marshall Pruett)

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