Ganassi, Stallings Tied in Grand Am Championship

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After one hundred laps around the 2.3-mile Barber Motorsports track the race and the championship lead came down to a three-way fight for first between the 99 Gainsco Bob Stallings car of Alex Gurney, the 01 Telmex Ganassi car driven by Scott Pruett, and the 06 Bob Shank Racing machine with Michael Valiante at the wheel. The trio spent the final twenty minutes of the race lapping nose-to-tail, probing for weaknesses and waiting for errors.

At the finish line, it was the Gainsco Pontiac Riley, coming back from a massive accident in Friday’s practice, that took the win, with the Telmex Lexus Riley right behind. Third across the line was the Shank Racing Ford-Riley, finally back on the podium after six races of bad luck.

“It was really slick out there at the end and I didn’t feel very good under breaking,” said Alex Gurney. “Great strategy by the team; it was just enough to hold it in front of Scott [Pruett] and he did a good job of racing me clean. So a great deal for Gainsco for the championship.

“We had a feeling we weren’t going to be so lucky to maintain that gap and when the yellow came out we knew we were going to have to fight for it,” said co-driver John Fogarty. “That’s the way it is with the 01 [Telmex Ganassi car] all the time.”

At the start of the race the championship was extremely close: three points covered the top three teams. After the race, it was closer. The win moved Gainsco-Stallings into a tie for the lead with Telmax Ganassi, with SunTrust Racing in third by a single point.

Scott Pruett was enthusiastic after the race. “That was another great race for Grand Am. The Gainsco guys ran good, and I can't say enough for Memo [co-driver Memo Rojas]. The championship fight continues. It’s all tied up.”

The race started badly for the Penske Porsche, fifth in the standings, as driver Roman Dumas lost control just after the start, damaging the car which had already been rebuilt once over the weekend after crashing heavily in practice.

On lap three, Brian Frisselle put the SunTrust Ford Dallara into the dirt. The SunTrust car had been second in the championship, contending for the lead. The accident put it out of contention.

“It was just a driver error. I came in too fast lost the rear end,” Frisselle explained. “It’s really disappointing. We’re fighting for a championship and I don’t want to be the reason that we lose that.”

The race started off as a duel between the Gainsco and Telmex cars, until lap 21 when the leaders pitted. The Telmex car had problems with its air jacks and lost 20 seconds in the pits. Into the gap moved David Donohue in the Brumos Porsche, followed by Burt Frisselle in the AIM Ford Riley and Jordan Taylor in the Beyer Chevy Crawford.

By Lap 36 Jon Fogarty had worked his way back to second in the Gainsco car, with the Spirit of Daytona Coyote Porsche right behind him. This was the old 99 car; the new 09 was still being repaired. Old or not the Coyote was running better than ever.

By lap 41, Fogarty had taken the lead, and Scott Pruett had worked the Telmex machine back into third place. On lap 65 the leaders pitted; Alex Gurney took over ofr Jon Fogarty in the Gainsco cat, and Buddy Rice replaced Antonio Garcia in the Coyote. The Telmex car again had jack problems; first the jacks dropped the car on the loosened wheel before it was removed, then dropped the car on its undertray once the wheels were off.

Despite its difficulties, the Telmex car was back in second place by lap 72.

The Shank Racing car picked up a twenty second penalty for running over pit equipment, and exited the pits right behind Buddy Rice in the Coyote. Rice, on cold tires, spun and Michael Valiante piloted the Shank car past him into third.

At this point Gurney led Pruett by 15 seconds; Michael Valiante in the Shank Racing Ford Riley was another ten seconds back. It looked like the rest of the race would be a parade.

On lap 85, Wayne Nonnamaker put the Racers Edge Motorsports Mazda RX-8 into the tire barrier, bringing out a long caution. This tightened up the field, setting up a sprint to the finish.

On lap 94 the race went green, with twenty minutes left to run.

The rest of the race was a three-way battle.

While Scott Pruett tried his best to pass Alex Gurney, Michael Valiante nearly passed Pruett. At one point Valiante used lapped traffic to get a run on Pruett and ran side by side with him through two corners, but couldn’t make it stick. This distracted Pruett enough that Gurney opened a gap, but Pruett was right back to business.

The three cars finished within a second of each other.

 

 

Rolex Grand Am Daytona Prototypes Championships
Drivers Championship							Team Championship
	#	Driver	Team	Pts	Gap			Team	Pts	Gap
1	01	Scott Pruett	Chip Ganassi Racing	216			1	Chip Ganassi Racing	216
1	01	Memo Rojass	Chip Ganassi Racing	216			2	Bob Stallings Racing	216
3	99	Jon Fogarty	Bob Stallings Racing	216			3	SunTrust Racing	215	1
3	99	Alex Gurney	Bob Stallings Racing	216	1		4	Michael Shank Racing	199	17
5	10	Brian Frisselle	SunTrust Racing	215	17		5	Penske Racing	198	18

 

 

 

Final Results Grand Am Rolex Porsche 250
	#	class	Place in class	Driver	Laps	Gap	Team/ Car
1	99	DP	1	Alex Gurney	104		GAINSCO/ Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley
2	01	DP	2	Scott Pruett	104	0.374	Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley
3	6	DP	3	Michael Valiante	104	1.053	Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley
4	09	DP	4	Buddy Rice	103	1 lap	Spirit of Daytona Racing Porsche Coyote
5	76	DP	5	Ricardo Zonta	103	1 lap	Krohn Racing Ford Lola
6	61	DP	6	Mark Wilkins	103	1 lap	AIM Autosport Ford Riley
7	60	DP	7	Oswaldo Negri Jr	103	1 lap	Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley
8	77	DP	8	Memo Gidley	103	1 lap	Doran Racing Ford Dallara
9	59	DP	9	Joao Barbosa	103	1 lap	Brumos Racing Porsche Riley
10	58	DP	10	Darren Law	102	2 laps	Brumos Racing Porsche Riley
11	5	DP	11	Jared Beyer	102	2 laps	Beyer Racing Chevrolet Crawford
12	2	DP	12	Andy Wallace	101	3 laps	Childress-Howard Motorsports Chevrolet Crawford
13	13	DP	13	Mike Forest	101	3 laps	Beyer Racing Chevrolet Riley
14	10	DP	14	Max Angelelli	101	3 laps	SunTrust Racing Ford Dallara
15	12	DP	15	Timo Bernhard	101	3 laps	Penske Racing Porsche Riley
16	57	GT	1	Robin Liddell	97	7 laps	Stevenson Motorsports Pontiac GXP.R
17	70	GT	2	Nick Ham	97	7 laps	SpeedSource Mazda RX-8
18	07	GT	3	Paul Edwards	97	7 laps	Team Drinkin' Mate Pontiac GXP.R
19	40	GT	4	Charles Espenlaub	96	8 laps	Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8
20	87	GT	5	Dirk Werner	96	8 laps	Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3
21	69	GT	6	Jeff Segal	96	8 laps	SpeedSource Mazda RX-8
22	86	GT	7	Wolf Henzler	96	8 laps	Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3
23	65	GT	8	Craig Stanton	95	9 laps	TRG Porsche GT3
24	66	GT	9	Spencer Pumpelly	95	9 laps	TRG Porsche GT3
25	67	GT	10	Andy Lally	95	9 laps	TRG Porsche GT3
26	43	GT	11	Will Nonnamaker	95	9 laps	Team Sahlen Corvette
27	68	GT	12	Scott Schroeder	80	24 laps	TRG Porsche GT3
28	30	GT	13	Wayne Nonnamaker	54	50 laps	Racers Edge Motorsports Mazda RX-8
29	21	GT	14	Matt Connolly	25	79 laps	Battery Tender/ MCM Racing Pontiac GTO.R
30	42	GT	15	Will Nonnamaker	2	102 laps	Team Sahlen Corvette