Wayne Taylor Racing’s dreams of success at the 52nd Rolex 24 at Daytona fell away by the narrowest of margins as they had to settle for second unable to match the pace of Action Express Racing.
However the team, made up of Wayne Taylor with sons Ricky and Jordan as well as long time friend Max Angelelli, did score an historic top four sweep for Corvette in their DP.
Having stayed on the lead lap from the green flag to the checkered flag, the Italian Angelelli was a mere 1.4 seconds behind Action Express trio Christian Fittipaldi, Joao Barbosa and Sebastien Bourdais as the clock struck 24.
The whole crew at Wayne Taylor Racing will have been having flashbacks to last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona where the team also had an issue free race but were shut out by the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates team.
Team boss Wayne Taylor said: “It was an incredible weekend, an emotional weekend to be in a situation to have my kids and Max, who is like my oldest kid, to be together. We’ve been around each other for the last 20 years.
“Those guys (Action Express Racing) did a great job. They beat us fair and square, and they deserved to win, so I congratulate all those guys. But really, I’m still really happy to have had this experience and to have had everybody support it the way they have. It was just a great weekend.”
Taylor went on to say he was initially reluctant to get behind the wheel of the #10 but the promise of being able to race with both his sons and Angelelli, persuaded him to make just one last start: “If you drive race cars all your life, you always want to be the quickest guy. And now, suddenly, I’m coming in being the slowest guy, so slow that I’m questioning wither I should be on the track or not. But actually it worked out to be really good. They put me in the car at a good time and I had a lot of fun.”
Ricky Taylor, who will be racing with his brother full time for the rest of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, was disappointed at the result but said: “We had a really good car. It’s nice when you know that the Corvette is the car to beat, and you are lucky enough to drive one. It was really cool to have an opportunity to win. That is just more reason to be disappointed.
“It’s really cool to be back. It had been a year, and we had been the enemy for a year, and now I came back and I felt like the family again.”
