Grand-Am, Miller Motorsports Park – Race Report
Collins & Edwards Clinch The GT Crown The final race of a hard-fought Rolex Sports Car Series saw six caution periods and a mid-race downpour over the course of its almost seven hour duration, but at the end we had a new winner overall and finally discovered who had taken the GT title. Not for the first time, the first corner of the first lap saw trouble; on this occasion caused by Matt Plumb spinning the Rum Bum Racing Riley at the corner’s exit and knocking the nose off Memo Gidley’s Doran Racing Dallara. Immediately a caution period was declared, but this thankfully lasted just one lap. At the front, Ricardo Zonta started to pull out a lead in the #76 Krohn Racing Pontiac Lola, while in the GT class Wolf Henzler in the #87 Farnbacher Loles Porsche took the first spot away from Leh Keen’s #86 sister car. Already several cars were making their first-45-minutes mandatory stops. The next few laps saw a remarkable sequence of spins, retirements and other ailments, with the #69 SpeedSource Mazda’s on-track expiry requiring a second caution on lap 9. This prompted most of the DP and GT cars to pit before it went green again, leaving Jim Matthews to lead overall in the #91 Bob Stallings Riley and the similarly unpitted Patrick Dempsey to lead GT in the #40 Hyper Sport Mazda RX-8. These positions were, however, very temporary. At the end of the first 45 minutes, the top five overall are #58 David Donohue, #75 Eric van de Poele, #23 Joey Hand, #99 Alex Gurney and #01 Scott Pruett; while in GT, the leaders were #88 Dominik Farnbacher, #87 Wolf Henzler, #86 Leh Keen, #07 Paul Edwards and #06 Marc Bunting. Joey Hand celebrated the birth of his daughter Kaylee Amber by taking second away from the Belgian legend on lap 16, but it would be another 40 minutes before he would see the lead. At the same point in the race, Christophe Bouchut – making his first start Grand-Am start since 2001 - was taking the LevelFive Motorsports Ferrari 430 up to sixth place (from 22nd on the grid after a difficult qualifying), but the car didn’t have much further to run after suffering a broken gear-stick and a blown engine. The positions continued to shuffle in both classes and just after the two hour mark the leaders were #23 Bill Auberlen, #58 David Donohue, #01 Michael Valiante, #61 Brian Frisselle and #01 Memo Rojas. In GT, it was #86 Eric Lux, #07 Kelly Collins, #87 Bryce Miller, #07 Nick Ham and #57 Robin Liddell. The Scotsman in fifth place in GT had just one car in his sights – that of points leader Collins, in second. He knew that what ever else happened, he would have to catch, pass and finish ahead of the Banner car. By lap 67, at almost the mid-point of the race, Liddell was chasing Collins hard for second place in GT and wasn’t distracted by the TRG Porsche of Patrick Long passing both cars to take that position. But just a few minutes later the heavens opened and thoughts turned to just staying on track; “The track was extremely treacherous and we were driving around barely able to keep up behind the safety car. I spun like a top on standing water while in first gear doing no more than 25mph. It was only a brief shower but it flooded the track and I pitted under the caution having just taken the GT class lead on four hours, handing over to Andrew who rejoined in second place on wet weather, treaded tyres. ”Our championship rivals also pitted at the same time for a driver change and to go onto wet tyres but on the restart they immediately pitted again to go back onto dry, non-treaded ‘slick’ tyres. Andrew pitted a few laps later under green flag conditions, and I took over again on ‘slicks’ but we had dropped to second and lost a lot of ground to the leading Pontiac.” The rain was the course of the caution period, and the top ten at four hours was #58, #99, #76, #10, #01, #23, #91, #61, #75 and #06. Buddy Rice was now the leader in the #58 Brumos Porsche, but with the track drying quickly there was soon another rash of pit stops. At the five hour mark, Raphael Matos was starting to get himself noticed in the #6 Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley; the 2008 Indy Lights Champion up to fifth and running strongly. On lap 108, the sixth and final caution period began when Oswaldo Negri’s #60 MSR Ford Riley ground to a halt on track. But Negri’s misfortune was a bonus for his team mate and Matos found himself leading after taking the opportunity to pit under yellow. The Brazilian wasn’t the least bit fazed by the responsibility of leading on his DP debut and proved it by setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 118 - and then bettering it on lap 119. Over the course of the rest of the race, he simply moved further and further ahead of his pursuers to cross the line at the end of lap 137 to win by 29.398 seconds. "Mike Shank Racing did a phenomenal job," said Matos, who opened the 2008 season with a GT Class win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. "Ian James and John Pew were fantastic and then the guys did such a great job with the pit stop to put me in the lead, and then I was able to put a gap on everybody. The car had a great balance and got better as the race went on. I just want to thank Mike Shank Racing and Ford and Pirelli for all the support, and this is such a happy moment for everyone in this program, it's a great way to finish the season."  |
Max Angelelli claimed second for SunTrust Racing ahead of 2007 champion Alex Gurney in the #99 GAINSCO Pontiac Riley. Back in ninth after a quiet race, Scott Pruett and memo Rojas were celebrating the confirmation of their drivers title; "We hoped to finish a little higher today, but we were turned around late in race, but we did what we had to do,” said Pruett. “After three straight seasons finishing second in this championship, it's great to be back on top. To accomplish what we have all season is just a testament to everyone involved - the entire Chip Ganassi Racing team, everyone at Lexus and TRD and we couldn't have done it without the support of a great partner in TELMEX. The record is great, but I'll look back on that more at the end of my career. Right now, it's all about winning this championship and all the guys that have worked so hard. Nobody puts together a better effort than Chip Ganassi."  |
"It's been a great season, from winning the Rolex 24 all the way to wrapping up the championship today,” added Rojas. “It's just been a privilege to drive for the Chip Ganassi Racing team with such great support from Lexus, TELMEX, and of course, my team-mate, Scott. It's also a great honour to become the first driver from my country to win a major racing championship - and this is really for all the people back in Mexico. They love racing and they really support the Rolex Series." But there was still the not-so-small matter of the GT title to be resolved and this had boiled down to a straight fight between Paul Edwards in the #07 Banner Racing Pontiac and Robin Liddell in the #57 Stevenson Motorsports GXP.R. With half an hour remaining, the gap between the first two in the class was 36 seconds. That distance gradually diminished, before Edwards pegged it at 30s on lap 129. Liddell responded and pushed again, but it was clear that the Banner car had enough in hand and the race – and the title – went to Edwards and Kelly Collins. "A dream come true," said Edwards. "A championship is something you dream about when you first start racing. It has been a tough couple of weeks since New Jersey thinking about the last race. We had a strong start to the season and accumulated a lot of points. We led the series since Mexico City and then Davis and Liddell started to put a lot of pressure on us. We had a great car today. The team made an excellent call to go to slicks before the green came out and that gave us a big gap especially when a yellow did not follow. Also one of our pit stops gave us a lead of about 17 seconds on the #70 and about 10 on the #57, so that made our job on the track a little easier."  |
"The car was unbelievably hard to drive in the wet," Collins said. "We could barely go 25 mph and the thing was aqua-planning off of the track and cars were spinning everywhere. It was touch and go there for a while. I think that was the toughest four laps of the season, just putting around in first gear under yellow waiting for the pits to open. It was a fantastic weekend. We took a conservative approach after we got the points lead early in the season. Paul and I just had to get back to what we do best and that is be aggressive and go for the win." The GT runners-up were more than gracious in defeat; "To be honest I'm pretty happy,” said Robin Liddell. “We obviously lost some time with the wet cautions there. We came in wet-to-wet and the Banner guys stayed out on slicks for another lap or so and then they went to rains, so that's how they got the break on us; but I'm really happy with the race we did. I think we did a great job with what we had underneath us. The car was good, but it wasn't enough to be able to push it and get more out of it. “Second in the race and second in the championship - it's a great result for us. If you look at the whole season and where we've come from, we're very happy." "That was a great race. We did all we could,” continued Davis. “The # 07 car with Kelly (Collins) and Paul (Edwards) did a great job. Congratulations to Pontiac and GM for the manufactures title. Congratulations to Banner and those guys for the championship and driver's championship.” And so ended a highly entertaining season. All that was left now was for the teams to head off to Las Vegas for the end-of-season awards banquet…… …..and then on to Daytona in October and November for testing for 2009! MH | 
