Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli went one step closer to becoming the 2013 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series champions with a dominant victory at Laguna Seca.
The Wayne Taylor Racing duo were never challenged for victory, leading 72 of the 105 laps contested over the two hour distance, winning by a margin on 2.6 seconds. Defending champions Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas finished the race in second, but couldn’t get as close to the victors as they could at Kansas, where the lead battle went right down to the wire.
“I definitely was under a lot more pressure at Kansas,” said Taylor. “Today we had a better car and we could control it from the front.”
The victory means that Taylor and Angelelli now take an eight point lead over the reigning champions to the final race at Lime Rock Park. Pruett and Rojas jumped from sixth in the standings to second with their podium finish, with IndyCar drivers Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon rounding out the rostrum positions.
Going in to Laguna Seca, only five points separated the top 10, but heading in to the final round, Wayne Taylor Racing has an eight point gap to the Ganassi duo, with Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty a further three points back. Christian Fittipaldi sits a further two points behind Gurney and Fogarty, leading Joao Barbosa, Alex Popow and Ryan Dalziel.
Chip Ganassi Racing lead the Team’s championship over Wayne Taylor Racing by eleven points, while Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing is a further eleven points behind Wayne Taylor Racing.
The GT Class saw a first victory for Magnus Racing, with Andy Lally leading the final 26 laps to give himself and John Potter the rights to the top step of the podium. Lally kept back the advances of Billy Johnson and Michael Marcel‘s Turner Motorsport BMW, while Eric Curran and Boris Said rounded out the podium places in their Marsh Racing Corvette.
Lally and Potter take an eight point lead over Alessandro Balzan, who finished fifth at Laguna Seca after leading 37 laps in the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458, in to the final round.
Tom Long and Sylvain Tremblay took victory in the GX Class, placing their Mazda 6 in first place. Jim Norman scored his eight-consecutive second place finish in the BGB Motorsport‘s Porsche Cayman, which he shared with Spencer Pumpelly, extending his championship lead over Joel Miller to eleven points. Miller’s car started from pole with Tristan Nunez at the wheel, but was back in the garage after the parade lap for lengthy repairs. Eventually Miller finished fourth and 25 laps down.
