Cruising Peachy at Lime Rock Park: Early rain becomes late-day champagne
It’s been a long time since the SunTrust Racing Chevy-Dallara driven by Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli won a Grand-Am Daytona Prototype race. Twelve months, in fact. The team’s last win was... at Lime Rock Park last year. These guys have Lime Rock dialed in – plus a little bit of luck, as Angelelli pointed out after the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 race.
“Well, everybody’s job is easier when two top teams have trouble,” the Italian said. “The Ganassi 01 Telmex car and the Gainsco 99 both had trouble – like last year.”
Taylor added, “But we still had the car to win even if they had run well. Our engineers gave us a great car right out of the truck.”
John Pew and Ozz Negri finished second, albeit a lap down, in the Crown Royal XR Ford-Riley, with Ryan Dalziel and Mike Forest P3 in the Starworks Motorsport Ford-Riley.
In the Rolex GT division, it was a Chevy Camaro one-two, fielded by two different teams. Robin Liddell and Jan Magnussen’s Stevenson Auto Group Camaro GT.R beat Jordan Taylor – yes, Ricky’s younger brother – and Bill Lester’s Autohaus Motorsports GT.R, with the Brumos Racing Porsche GT3 Cup driven by Leh Keen and Andrew Davis third.
If you’re wondering where Patrick Dempsey and Joe Foster finished... well, a busted u-joint ended the day early for their Visit Florida Mazda RX-8 and the duo officially finished 11th in the GT class.
After the morning storm found itself chased away by a burgeoning crowd, the first race of the day went green under clear skies and a dry track: the BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda. Unlike Saturday’s spectacularly close race (the margin of victory was about two feet), 15-year-old Trent Hindman walked the field, taking the checker 16 seconds ahead of Saturday winner Scott Anderson, who was a further 9 seconds up on Brandon Newey.
The race immediately after the Rolex clash was the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup race. It was shades of Saturday’s mega-close Skip Barber race, as Dean Copeland edged Jason Saini by just .096 of a second. Third again was Jeff Mosing.
When all was said and done, it was one of the bigger Lime Rock Memorial Day crowds in recent memory, as folks realized the morning storm was going to give way early and transform the day into a sunny and hot affair.
