Scott Maxwell and British Touring Car driver Andrew Jordan ended the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge test at Daytona International Speedway with the fastest times in the respective classes, both setting the bench mark in in morning session of the final day of running.
Like the Rolex Series the Continental Tire Series shared the ‘Roar Before the 24’ schedules with the best times cam on Sunday morning, Maxwell pacing the Grand Sport (GS) class in the #55 Multimatic Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage.
Maxwell, sharing the car with Jade Buford, was the only man to dip beneath the 1:57 barrier around the 3.56 mile Daytona road course setting a lap of 1:56.936. The marker survived the final session of testing paced by Fall–Line Motorsports to cap a strong showing by the Aston Martin teams in the class.
In the Sunday morning session the British marque filled the top three, David Empringham second fastest in another Multimatic entry while works driver Stefan Mucke was fastest for the new TRG–AMR North America squad born out of TRG’s partnership with the brand in its US racing exploits.
Multimatic had a car in the top three of all the sessions of dry running, discounting the two Friday sessions in the wet, which were both led by Andrew Aquilante in the #35 Subaru WRX-STI. Aquilante also led the Saturday afternoon session.
Lawrence Davey, in his first driving at Daytona in the Mitchum Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro he will drive in the Continental Tire 200 race at Daytona later this month, turned a best lap of 1:57.748 in the Sunday morning session. The British driver, who won his drive through the Sunoco Grand–Am 200 Challenge, was eighth fastest in the session.
In the Street Tuner (ST) class Jordan – the 2012 BTCC Independents’ champion – set the fastest lap for Compass360 Racing with a 2:06.642 lap.
Andrew Jordan took the #77 Honda Civic to the top of ST (Photo Credit: Grand-Am)
The team – running Honda Civic Si – also claimed the second fastest time of the session through Ryan Eversley who set his best lap on Saturday morning.
In order to take the best time Jordan faced some strong opposition, the field for the ST class also including 2005 Rolex 24 winner Terry Borcheller who was driving a BMW 128i for Burton Racing, Predictably for someone of Borcheller’s calibre he led several sessions for the team and was second fastest in the session Jordan set the overall best lap. However, his own best lap (2:07.043) came on Saturday afternoon.
