Spirit of Daytona Racing will be looking to repeat their strong success of 2012 as the Rolex Series rolls in to Mid Ohio.
The win was the second of three for the Floridian team in 2012 and they will be hoping Richard Westbrook will be able to call on last season’s victory to guide himself and team-mates Michael Valiante and Ricky Taylor to a similar result in 2013.
Despite having raced at Mid-Ohio five times before, Taylor has never managed to score a top five at the popular road course and will be hoping to turn his fortunes around for his father’s team.
“Every year, it’s been just something unlucky happening, or one bad decision or something like that,” said Taylor. “I think we should have a good car there this weekend. I think, in the past, it’s just been little things – getting caught out by a yellow or making contact with another car at a key moment in the race. As long as nothing crazy happens, we should have a solid finish this weekend. I like the track and I think our car should be good. Personally, I don’t have a great record there, but the team is excellent, and they’ve been excellent all five rounds this season and there’s no reason why we can’t repeat last year’s win.”
The 2012 win gave Spirit of Daytona a healthy points haul as they headed to 3rd overall in the championship standings and placed as the top Daytona Prototype of the year.
“We were up and down and up and down last year,” said team owner Troy Flis. “The guys have worked really hard to find and fix the things that were keeping us from finishing races last year. So when we go to a track like Mid-Ohio where we won before, we know that the expectations are high and we are ok with that!”