An early driver change proved a wise strategy for the #31 Action Express Racing team of Eric Curran and Dane Cameron in Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America.
The #31 Corvette DP, which had previously won this season at Detroit, came home 14 seconds ahead of its sister #5 car driven by Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi, making it a 1-2 finish for the team.
“I’m not really sure what happened to everyone else – we stayed focused on our own race,” commented Cameron, who came to this race having won two weeks ago in the GTD class at Lime Rock Park.
“You have to be perfect to win races in the IMSA Prototype category; the competition level is incredibly high. I think we were actually really perfect, and you can’t ask for anything better.”
Finishing third overall and in Prototype, were polesitters Joey Hand and Scott Pruett, their #01 Chip Ganassi Riley-Ford having suffered a pit stop delay early in the race.
“We knew we had a great car this weekend,” said Scott Pruett. “Unfortunately, we had a line come undone on the left-side boost system, and we had to fix it. We lost significant power.
“I think even getting back to third was a pretty solid day for how back we were.”
Michael Shank Racing recovered from pre-race difficulties to finish fourth, thanks to strong drives from John Pew and Oswaldo Negri Jr in the #60 Ligier JS P2.
Championship leaders VisitFlorida.com Racing were unable to have the result they had hoped for at the Wisconsin track, with drivers Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante completing the race in fifth position. Their lead in the standings is now just one point over the #5 crew.
For the second race in a row, DeltaWing have avoided the technical and reliability issues that they had become used to. Memo Rojas and Katherine Legge finished the #0 car’s race in sixth overall.
Seventh in class, and 11th overall was the sole Mazda Prototype of Tom Long and Joel Miller who came home two laps down. Finally, amongst the GT Le Mans field, was the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing team of Ricky and Jordan Taylor. Their Corvette DP suffered from left-rear suspension damage discovered at the final pitstop, forcing them to lose two laps in the process.
“It wasn’t a great result, obviously,” Jordan Taylor said. “I got in and we had some issues on the pit stop and I couldn’t get rolling. We were set back to third at that point, but I still felt competitive in that position. The car was the best it had been all weekend.
“But, somewhere along my run, something happened with the rear of the car and we had to come in and fix it. That took us out of contention. Basically, from there, we just ran laps in case somebody in front of us had trouble in order to maximize points. Looking ahead at the next two races, the championship is pretty much out of our hands, so we’ll just have to try to win those two races.”
