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The #99 Chevrolet Riley of Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney won the NJMP 250. (Brian Cleary/Getty Images)
Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty, driving the red #99 GAINSCO Chevrolet-Riley Daytona Prototype, stole the win from the reigning Daytona Prototype champions, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas on the penultimate lap of the NJMP 250 at New Jersey Motorsports Park, which ran for two hours and 45 minutes and 115 laps.
The #01 BMW Riley of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas passes two GT cars while the Gurney/Fogarty #99 Chevrolet Riley chases it down during the NJMP 250. (Brian Cleary/Getty Images)
The Gurney/Fogarty duo, which started from the pole on the 2.25 mile 14-turn road course, lead the field to the race start at 1:07PM EDT. It was a relatively clean start—the only SNAFU was that Nic Jonsson, driving the #77 Krohn Racing Ford-Proto/Lola, spun off at the first series of turns after contact with another competitor.
The race was marred with multiple penalties for “avoidable contact”: the #68 Mazda RX-8 driven by Adam Cristodoulou spun out the #07 Chevrolet Corvette driven by Scott Russell at Turn 2, with Cristodoulou serving a drive-through penalty; the #70 Mazda RX-8 of Jonathan Bomarito was also nailed with an “avoidable contact” penalty after knocking off the GT class-leading #57 Chevrolet Camaro GT.R of Robin Liddell.
The race pace was slowed three times for full-course cautions: on lap 13, former Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice, driving the #90 Spirit of Daytona Racing Porsche-Coyote, was spun at Turn 1 from contact from Terry Borcheller, champion in several Rolex Sports Car Series classes in the past. Rice couldn’t get the car back under way under its own power and needed the assistance of the circuit marshals. It took six minutes to get the #90 back running.
Caution number two came as a result of Tracy Krohn pulling off of the circuit with a broken left-front suspension, which necessitated rescue by a tow truck. The race was slowed for 10 minutes while the car was brought back to the paddock area.
Caution #3 was called because of debris that was shed on the main straight, which took eight minutes to cleanup.
Several drivers led laps: Jon Fogarty (for 12 laps total), Ricky Taylor, son of team owner Wayne Taylor, Canadian Mark Wilkins, the Mexican Memo Rojas, Brian Frisselle, Oswaldo Negri Jr, reigning Daytona Prototype champion Scott Pruett and race winner Alex Gurney, son of racing legend Dan Gurney.
The 90 degree heat played havoc with the drivers, who suffered cockpit temperatures in excess of 145 degrees. Memo Rojas collapsed after his stint, most likely from dehydration as his water bottle (which is run by an electrical pump) failed during the early part of the race. Other drivers had wet rags draped over their heads and were sucking down water. The Turner Motorsports BMW M6 team actually cooked a chicken breast as the car raced on the circuit. Hopefully it was cooked thoroughly. Hopefully, the drivers were not.
The top five finishers in Daytona Prototype class were #99 GAINSCO Chevrolet-Riley Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty, #01Telmex BMW-Riley Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas, #10 SunTrust Ford-Dallara Max Angelelli/Ricky Taylor, #61 Pacific Mobile Ford-Riley Burt Frisselle/Mark Wilkins and #6 Corsa Car Care BMW-Riley Mike Forest/Ryan Dalziel.
Top five in Grand Touring were: #70 Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8 Sylvain Tremblay/Jonathan Bomarito, #68 MazdaSpeed Motorsports Development John Edwards/Adam Cristodoulou, #69 FXDD Mazda RX-8 Emil Assentato/Jeff Segal, #41 Global Driving & Salvage Mazda RX-8 James Gue/Leh Keen and #94 Turner Motorsports BMW M6 Bill Auberlen/Joey Hand.
The next race in the Grand Am Rolex is the Crown Royal 200 at the Glen, at the Watkins Glen International, on August 7th, racing in support of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen.
Tickets are available online through the Watkins Glen International website ticket page.
Daytona Prototype Driver’s Standings after nine races:
1) Memo Rojas/Scott Pruett: 267
3) Ryan Dalziel: 248 (-19)
4) Burt Frisselle/Mark Wilkins: 241 (-26)
6) Max Angelelli/Ricky Taylor: 240 (-27)
Mike Forest: 232 (-35)
9) John Pew/Jon Fogarty/Oswaldo Negri Jr: 231 (-36)
Grand Touring Driver’s Standings after nine races:
1) Emil Assentato/Jeff Segal: 262
3) Sylvain Tremblay: 254 (-8)
4) Andy Lally: 245 (-17)
5) Jonathan Bomarito: 235 (-27)
6) Andrew Davis/Andrew Liddell: 233 (-29)
James Gue/Leh Keen: 229 (-33)
10) Adam Christodoulou/John Edwards: 219 (-43)
Kevin Walker is a motorsports journalist from Flat Rock, Michigan.
