The win gave Stallings Racing, Fogarty and Gurney the lead in both the team and driver championships, with 119 points each.
Downforce>Miles per Hour
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca had been updated over the off-season, with new paved runoff areas to keep cars out of the gravel traps. Apparently this worked, as there were half as many yellow flags this year as last. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is a tight, high-downforce course; Daytona Prototypes were pushing through slowest turn at 45 mph and topping out at 155 on the straight.
The racing was furious for the first twenty laps. Lap nine saw a yellow as a TRG Porsche split a radiator. A collision between Scott Tucker in the #55 Supercar Riley BMW and Brad Jaeger in the #77 Doran Dallara Ford brought out another yellow on lap eighteen; many drivers took this opportunity to make their mandatory first pit stop.
Several teams also made a driver change here, including the Gainsco car. Unfortunately, according to race stewards, these drivers needed to drive another twenty seconds to complete their requisite thirty minutes to earn championship points. In the Gainsco pits, Jon Fogarty said that even if he didn’t get points, he would not get back in the car, because the extra pit stop might cost the team the race.
On the restart, Roman Dumas in the Penske Porsche was hot on the heels of Memo Rojas’ Telmex Ganassi Riley Lexus, who was chasing Brian Frisselle in the Suntrust car; Frisselle had not yet pitted.
The Porsches had received some massaging from the series organizers after New Jersey; the GT Porsches were allowed to drop some weight and also allowed to run wider rear bodywork, which would allow them to run the RSR suspension.
The DP Porsches were given back sixth gear, in exchange for another hundred revs. Apparently the change suited the Penske car; the series-leading Brumos Porsche, on the other hand was struggling. After having never finished out of the top five all season, Darren and Law and David Donohue barely able to hang with the top ten. Having 2008 bodywork, which generates less downforce, really hurt them at Mazda Laguna Seca.
On lap 23, Leh Keen in the Farnsbacher Loles Porsche took the GT lead from Nick Ham in the SpeedSource
Mazda RX8. Ham stayed glued to Keen’s bumper; the pair swapped the lead three times in a single lap. The Mazda had better straight-line speed; eventually Leh Keen had to ease off the save the Porshce’s tires.
The GT Pontiacs had been forced to add 25 lbs., but the Pontiacs seemed not to notice as the Stevenson Pontiac GXP.R, with Robin Liddell at the wheel , passed Leh Keen’s Porsche on lap 53 and started hunting down Ham in the Mazda.
Miles per Gallon>Miles per Hour
By lap 57, Memo Rojas led by seven seconds, with Alex Gurny right on the tail of Roman Dumas. The Gainsco car had more fuel and fresher tires. This mattered, because on lap 63, Dumas pitted and handed off the car to Timo Bernhard. Alex Gurney came in at the same time and handed off to Jon Fogarty. Because the Gainsco car needed less fuel, it got out of the pits ahead of the Penske Porsche.
Penske planned to run the Porsche without a third stop. They felt they could make fuel and take the lead when the rest of the leaders came in for a splash to finish. Because there were so few yellows this year, most teams were worrying about their fuel mileage—most teams had figured on frequent yellows to stretch their mileage.
The Telmex Ganassi car also came in at this time, Scott Pruett taking over behind the wheel.
All that strategizing came to nothing as the Sahlen GT Corvette spun into one of Mazda Laguna Seca’s notorious gravel traps. Sahlen couldn’t extricate his car, necessitating a tow truck and a full-course yellow. With the yellow, every team figured to be able to finish without a third stop.
Timo Bernhard passed Jon Fogarty on the restart, but was deemed to have jumped the start. Timo was assessed a stop-and-go penalty, probably throwing away his chance to win. He had 45 minutes left to try to make up lost ground, but some of the other DP cars were running very strong. Max Angelelli in the Suntrust and Michael Valiante in the Shank Racing Riley Ford, in fourth and fifth, were taking turns setting fastest laps, harassing Burt Frisselle in the AIM Riley Ford.
Collision Course
The race heated up again in the final twenty laps. On lap 82, Valiante braked too hard for a corner and almost lost the rear end; Angelelli decided to dive inside. The two rounded the corner side by side, leaning on each other, then Angelellli pushed by. Valiante immediately rammed Angelelli in the rearto show his displeasure with Angelelli’s tactics.
Shortly thereafter, Angelelli and Valiante tried to pass a slower GT Porsche on opposite sides. They both got by at the same time and collided again, this time with Valiante going into the dirt.
Meanwhile Jon Fogarty passed Scott Pruett when Pruett hesitated passing a GT car at the entrance to the Corkscrew. Fogarty ran right off the track to get inside Pruett, and the two went door-to-door through the downhill section of the Corkscrew. Pruett couldn’t hold the outside line through the second half of the corkscrew, and Fogarty forced his way through. Pruett immediately rammed Fogarty in the rear, much as Valiante had just done to Angelelli.
It seemed the race might be turning into a demolition derby; then, lap 87 brought the fourth full course caution of the day as the Mike Forest’s #13 Beyer Racing Lennox Riley Pontiac suffered engine failure and had to be towed off the track. Gave all the drivers a chance to clam down; it also gave timo Bernhard a chance to catch up to the leaders, to contest the finish.
On lap 92, with 18 minutes left, the race went back to green. Fogarty, Pruett, and Burt Frisselle in the AIM car jumped away from the pack. Behind them, Timo Bernhard was attacking Oswaldo Negri in the Shank Racing Ford Riley, fighting for fifth.
John Fogarty was flying in first place; with ten minutes left, he set fastest lap of the race at 1:20.5. Meanwhile Max Angelelli caught up to the leaders and took third from Frisselle, and then ran down Scott Pruett. Angelelli was able to stick with Pruett for a lap, but Pruett showed his experience by masterfully cutting through traffic, opening a small gap over the pursuing Suntrust driver.
In GT, the Banner Pontiac, which had handled poorly all weekend, seemed to improve as the day wore on. Eventually Paul Edwards put the car in second place, just ahead of the hard-charging Dirk Werner, driving the Farnsbacher Loles in Grand Am this weekend instead of ALMS. Farnsbacher Loles had hoped the hot driver might give them the edge needed to build a big lead in championship points, but the Porsche couldn’t get around the Pontiac, which in turn never caught up with the flying Speedsource Mazda Rx8 of Nick Ham and Sylvain Tremblay, who won by eight-tenths of a second.
The next event will be a six-hour endurance race, Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. Please visit the Watkin’s Glen Web site for tickets and information.
| Daytona Prototype Points Standings | ||||||
| Driver | Team | |||||
| Pos | Driver - Team | PTS | Pos | No | Team—Car | PTS |
| 1 | 119 | 1 | 99 | 119 | ||
| 119 | 2 | 58 | 111 | |||
| 3 | 111 | 3 | 10 | 108 | ||
| 111 | 4 | 01 | 105 | |||
| 5 | 108 | 5 | 12 | 104 | ||
| Pos | No. | Class | Pic | Drivers | Team | Car | Sponsors |
| 1 | 99 | DP | 1 | Fogarty/Gurney | Pontiac Riley | GAINSCO | |
| 2 | 01 | DP | 2 | Pruett/Rojas | Lexus Riley | TELMEX | |
| 3 | 10 | DP | 3 | Angelelli/Frisselle | Ford Dallara | Sun Trust | |
| 4 | 61 | DP | 4 | Frisselle/Wilkins | Ford Riley |
| |
| 5 | 60 | DP | 5 | Negri/Patterson | Ford Riley |
| |
| 6 | 12 | DP | 6 | Bernhard/Dumas | Porsche Riley | Verizon | |
| 7 | 6 | DP | 7 | Pew/Valiante | Ford Riley |
| |
| 8 | 58 | DP | 8 | Donohue/Law | Porsche Riley | Brumos Porsche | |
| 9 | 55 | DP | 9 | Bouchut/Tucker | BMW Riley | Supercar Life | |
| 10 | 45 | DP | 10 | Lester/Manning | BMW Riley |
|
| GT Results | |||||||
| Pos | No. | Class | Pic | Drivers | Team | Car | Sponsors |
| 13 | 70 | GT | 1 | Ham/Tremblay | Mazda RX-8 | Castrol Mazda | |
| 14 | 07 | GT | 2 | Collins/Edwards | Pontiac GXP.R | Pontiac | |
| 15 | 87 | GT | 3 | Keen/Werner | Porsche GT3 |
| |
| GT Championship Standings | ||||||
| Driver | Team | |||||
| Pos | Driver - Team | PTS | Pos | No | Team—Car | PTS |
| 1 | 117 | 1 | 66 | 117 | ||
| 2 | 116 | 2 | 87 | 116 | ||
| 116 | 3 | 57 | 111 | |||
| 4 | 111 | 4 | 07 | 108 | ||
| 111 | 5 | 86 | 105 | |||
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