Ryan Dalziel pulled out all the stops to come within half a second of winning the inaugural Grand-Am of the Americas.
The Scot was handed the #2 Starworks Motorsport car by team-mate Alex Popow in eleventh place following a spin. Dalziel set his mind on the front of the field, and after breaking the top ten, was up to second place within twenty-five laps.
A full course caution brought the field together and Dalziel battled with Scott Pruett and Alex Gurney to the flag, with Gurney taking the victory by less than half of a second.
“We will have to invent a new word for ‘charge’.” said Dalziel after the race. “I don’t think I have ever driven so hard in the last four laps of a race. The car was excellent and we came into the race full of confidence. We got involved in that incident at the start, but we got back on track. The car was damaged after the hit but it tells you how fast we could have been – to be that good with a damaged car. Alex and the whole Starworks crew did a great job and we are really proud of this result.”
“That last yellow didn’t help us.” he continued. “I think, if it hadn’t been for that we could have won it. It was an amazing race – I hope that everyone enjoyed it! It was hard. We knew where our strengths and weaknesses were going to be heading into the weekend and went down our own path in terms of strategy. We struggled a bit with straight line speed and with one more lap maybe we could have got the win. But we go away with good points and have risen up to third in the Series. Overall, it’s a great result for the #2 car, Team Popow and everyone at Starworks.”
