Grand-Am, Laguna Seca – Race Report
Win #3 For Westbrook, Title #2 For Segal & Assentato

Richard Westbrook took pole for Sunday's Continental Tire Sports Car Festival in the #90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP he shared with Antonio Garcia, after a lap of 1:21.042 around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The car had started the meeting off the pace, but the team worked on set up through practice and had it right in time for Saturday's qualifying session.

“I didn’t think we had the pace to match the #99 so I was a bit surprised, but the car was perfect,” said Westbrook. Jon Fogarty's best in the Red Dragon put him alongside the Englishman on the grid, with the #2 Starworks Riley Ford of Alex Popow and Alex Tagliani third.

Alessandro Balzan took GT pole on his Grand-Am debut, when he took the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 around the track in 1:27.594.

“I’m very proud to race here in the U.S. This track is very famous in Italy and it’s always been my dream to be here,” said the 31-year-old Italian. “I really have to thank my team for the opportunity. It’s been a great start and I am looking forward to tomorrow.” Eric Foss qualified the #73 Horton Autosport Porsche GT3 second fastest.

Richard Westbrook led the field around the pace lap and the cars got themselves into formation for the green, but as the DP pack exited the final turn the #5 Action Express Corvette of Paul Tracy spun and found itself amongst the GTs as the Canadian driver recovered. This didn’t affect the start and Westbrook led through the first left-hander, from Jon Fogarty in the #99 and Alex Popow in the #2.

Alessandro Balzan led GT on the opening lap, from the #73 Porsche of Eric Foss and the #31 Corvette of Boris Said; but the Marsh Racing driver had to watch his mirrors as Andrew Davis looked to regain the third place he had lost to Said at the start. Wayne Nonnamaker had also made a great start in the #43 Mazda and was on Davis’s tail in fifth. John Edwards had to take avoiding action in the #57 Stevenson Camaro on that first lap as the #94 Turner BMW of Paul Dalla Lana chopped across his nose; the car dropping to 15th in the process.

Westbrook and Fogarty broke away from the field in the opening minutes, with the Red Dragon pushing the Spirit of Daytona car round the 2.2 mile circuit. With ten minutes gone, the two leaders were a second apart and three seconds ahead of the Starworks Riley of Popow. In GT, Balzan was enjoying a five second lead over Foss, who was himself pulling away from the battle for third.

Fogarty began to get closer to Westbrook as the two cars found themselves navigating the GT pack for the first time.

The first caution period came at the 15-minute mark as the #87 Viper pulled off the track with loss of drive.  The top five DPs opted not to stop and Westbrook still led at the restart, with 25 minutes gone. Tracy – who had stopped – used his new rubber to take fifth from Pew at the first corner. GT was led by Foss from Said, while Balzan had dropped to ninth after stopping under caution.

It wasn’t long before the top two started to break away again, with Fogarty still chasing, but GT was closer than it had been with the top four – still in the order Foss, Said, Davis and Nonnamaker – running together. Further back, John Edwards was regaining lost ground in the #57 Camaro, but had only just made it into the top ten with half an hour gone.

All the while, sand was being thrown across the already-slippery track as various cars went across the kerbs.

Ricky Taylor  in the newly-liveried #10 SunTrust Corvette was having to defend from Memo Rojas in the #01 Ganassi Corvette; the championship leader being anxious to keep title rival Ryan Dalziel – now installed in the #8 Starworks Riley Ford – behind him. Just a few car lengths separated the #01 from the #8.

With five DPs soon involved in the battle, Rojas used traffic to finally find a way past the SunTrust car; but even as he made the move, the Mexican passed the APR Audi of Jim Norman which had dropped itself in the sand trap, bringing out the second full course yellow. Rojas immediately dived for the pitlane, but arrived just moments after the lane was closed and he was obliged to drive through, undoing all his good work in the process.

This time the leading cars all stopped, but with those cars that had pitted previously not needing as much fuel, the order was shaken up. Michael Shank Racing got Ozz Negri into the lead, with Dalziel exiting the pits in second place. Colin Braun was third in the #7 Starworks Riley, with Westbrook down to fourth. Scott Pruett hopped into the #01 and rejoined in seventh.

Patrick Lindsey took over the #73 Horton Autosport Porsche, but a jammed front-left wheel proved to be disastrous for the erstwhile leaders and the rest of the field was long gone before the car could rejoin.

The restart was a slow one, which resulted in several position changes on the first green lap. Alex Gurney, Joao Barbosa and Pruett dived for T1 three abreast a lap later – the #99 made the inside to go by the #01 while the #9 Corvette lost two places in the move. However, Gurney was adjudged to have crossed the inside white line – something that had been prohibited at the driver briefing – and the red car was obliged to drive slowly along the pitlane.

With an hour gone, the order was 60, 8, 7, 90, 2, 01, 10, 9, 5 and 99 in DP; and 63, 43, 57, 47, 59, 70, 44, 31, 69, 03 and 94 in GT.

Westbrook managed to retake third from Braun in DP, but the fight for the GT lead was getting closer and closer as Dane Cameron got the #43 Sahlen Mazda onto terms with the #63 458 of Balzan. Things weren’t going so well for John Edwards as the #57 Camaro – struggling massively for grip – started to slide down the order once more. Andy Lally was one of those to profit from Stevenson’s troubles, taking the #44 Magnus Porsche up to fourth.

A wayward moment for Braun cost the #7 DP several places and allowed Pruett to catch back up to Westbrook, who in turn had caught up to Dalziel. Negri still led, and with 90 minutes remaining had almost five seconds on the fight for second. Braun transgressed further as he tried to catch up, as he knocked the #41 Dempsey Racing Mazda into the sand trap and picked up a penalty for avoidable contact as a result.

As the DP fight for second continued, Cameron had found a way past Balzan and now led GT by more than three seconds. The Ferrari pitted soon afterwards and Olivier Beretta took over the #63. Leh Keen was now second in class in the Brumos Porsche, with Lally third in the #44.

As the race enjoyed an extended period of green-flag racing, the DP lead was eight seconds and the GT lead six seconds with 75 minutes remaining. The latest round of scheduled stops was now in progress and was likely to shake things up again.

Dalziel pitted from third at the 75 and took on fuel and tyres. This promoted Pruett to third, but he had David Donohue and Gurney right behind him. Westbrook had broken away in second and was taking huge chunks out of Negri’s lead with each lap. In GT, Jeff Segal was anxious to progress from fifth in the #69 AIM Ferrari, but Eric Curran was not letting him by in the #31 Marsh Corvette. Meanwhile, Lally was pushing Keen hard for second; and this became the fight for the lead as Cameron pitted. The Marsh Racing Porsche pitted a lap later, leaving the Brumos Porsche in the lead for the time being.

Gurney took position from Donohue across the line with 70 minutes to go. By this point, Westbrook had brought the #90 to within two seconds of the #60 MSR Riley Ford.

The top three in GT were covered by less than a second, with Johannes van Overbeek half a second further back in the ESM Ferrari 458.

Pruett took his penultimate stop with 65 minutes remaining, as did Alex Popow in the #2 Starworks car; Alex Tagliani taking over again. A lap later, Ozz Negri took his stop and handed the lead to Westbrook, who had by this point closed right up.

Then it was the turn of Spirit of Daytona, with Westbrook handing the #90 over to Antonio Garcia after an excellent 105 minute stint. Despite a seemingly flawless stop, the Spaniard resumed over fourth; Westbrook later confirming that he had got caught behind the #2 on the way in.

Barbosa led as the race entered its final hour, but owed us a stop; meaning Dalziel was the ‘real’ leader, followed by Negri, Pruett, Garcia, Gurney and Angelelli. And this was how things panned out as the Portuguese driver took his stop two minutes later.

Keen pitted from the GT lead soon afterwards, handing the lead back to Cameron in the #43. He was enjoying a 14 second cushion over Lally after their stops.

With 56 to go, Pruett dived down the inside of Negri at the top of the corkscrew to take second overall. He still had five seconds to make up on championship rival Dalziel at this point. Just six minutes later, Negri was back in the pitlane for a final fuel load.

Pruett began to eat into Dalziel’s lead, while Garcia was simultaneously closing on the #01. The Scott responded to the threat and the gap went back up to 4.7s as the second hour of the race expired. But Garcia was now under seven seconds behind Pruett and closing.

Pruett headed for the pitlane almost immediately to take on enough fuel to get to the end; no tyres though.

Five minutes later Garcia was just eight seconds off the lead. Gurney was running strongly too and under two seconds behind the Spirit of Daytona Corvette.

The GT leader took his final stop and dropped to fourth, but the now-third placed Segal had had a very close escape not long earlier after contact with the #49 Mazda along the start/finish straight.

35 to go – Dalziel stayed out but Garcia had closed to five seconds. The Starworks car would need new rubber at the stop and it looked as though Peter Baron was gambling on a caution helping them out.

Dalziel finally pitted with 32 to go. The car took on fuel but only right-side tyres. The stop went well and the #8 rejoined just ahead of Ozz Negri and crucially five seconds ahead of Pruett.

Garcia now led from Gurney, but both would need a splash ‘n dash to get to the end, or a caution. Troy Fliss called Garcia in with 24 minutes to go and the car was stationary for just a few moments as the required fuel was taken on board. The #90 rejoined well ahead of Dalziel, but Gurney stayed out in the lead. A miscommunication on the next lap caused the Red Dragon to lose valuable time while stuck behind a gaggle of GTs, but it stayed out; Bob Stallings confirming that the car would need fuel if a caution didn’t materialise.

Into the final quarter of an hour, both classes were led by cars - #99 and #69 – that would need to take on fuel.

Eric Curran spun the #31 Corvette on the plunge down the Corkscrew, but managed to stay on the tarmac and resumed without damage but having lost several seconds.

With eight minutes to go, the AIM Ferrari finally yielded to the inevitable and made its required stop. This dropped the #69 off the lead and promoted the #43 Sahlen Mazda back to P1.

Gurney was still out there in the overall lead, but he was running on fumes by this stage.

With six to go, the Red Dragon headed for the pits. The stop took only nine seconds, but Garcia went through – but the #99 got back on the track just ahead of Dalziel. The Scot was all over the red car, but Gurney resisted the Starworks driver’s initial challenge and crossed the line several car lengths ahead.

Garcia now led by six seconds with three minutes to go, while Cameron had 20 seconds over van Overbeek in GT.

Try as he might, Dalziel couldn’t get by Gurney and claim those crucial extra points that came with second place. Garcia, meanwhile, took the white flag and completed the final 11 turns without incident to take the third win of the season for Spirit of Daytona Racing.

“It was a fantastic day and very much needed; we are coming on the back end of a really bad run," said Westbrook. "The morale was pretty low after the last few races. It was just a fantastic weekend at a fantastic track.”

“At some point I knew it would come to fuel strategy and with 30 minutes to go I was little scared," said Garcia. "We were able to conserve tires all weekend which allowed me to push at the end.”

A few seconds later Gurney crossed the line to take second ahead of Dalziel.

“I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to do with the strategy at the end,” said Gurney. “We were looking for a yellow, it didn’t happen, but even with that we thought we could get out in front of the 90 on that last stop, but I caught the GT field and had four pretty slow laps in a row and that did it. A win wasn’t meant to be but a good result nonetheless for everyone at GAINSCO.”

“The car ran strong in the race,” said Fogarty. “I was a little concerned after qualifying that we weren’t going to have the pace for the 90 car but we put our thinking hats on and made some changes and I was pretty pleasantly surprised once the race started.  We had a very fast race car today. We had some things that set us back in the race, and to be able to battle back and finish second was an accomplishment.  We are pleased with that but at the same time we felt like today was an opportunity to win, and to do that on GAINSCO’s 99th running would have been an awesome thing, but it was still a good day.”

“It was a good points day - we extended the points to the #9 car and made some points on the #01," said Dalziel. "It’s tough, it’s still possible to win mathematically at Lime Rock, but Ganassi isn’t a team to give up and neither are we. It was as good as you could have hoped for today.”

But the biggest cheer of the day came from the Team Sahlen awning as Dane Cameron crossed the line to take their first ever GT win.

“We’ve won in every class in Grand-Am that we’ve run in, so to get this win before we go on to prototypes is great," said Wayne Nonnamaker. "It was a spot on job for the team the whole race and a great job by Dane to bring it home.”

It was an agonising final lap for Johannes van Overbeek, as his #03 ESM Ferrari ran out of fuel, and this promoted Jeff Segal to second. With a 39 points lead over Robin Liddell, this meant that he and Emil Assentato had just clinched a second GT title. Andy Lally took third for Magnus Racing.

“It’s a fantastic feeling to have set a goal at the beginning of the season to have worked very systematically toward achieving that goal.” said Segal. “One race before the end of the season we accomplished what we set out to do, which was to win the championship with Ferrari in its return to the Rolex Series.  There is still the manufacturers’ championship that we are fighting for at Lime Rock but a large part of the mission is accomplished.

“It’s a great feeling. It was a really, really hard-fought race, and I guess it is fitting that it ended like that in terms of clinching this deal. I think the perception has been that we have had an easy time this season but the reality has been quite a bit different. We have been fighting for everything, and this race, in order for us to seal it up before Lime Rock, we had a last lap battle that we needed to win, and we did.”
 
The series now heads to Lime Rock Park for the decider on September 29th. To all intents and purposes, Pruett and Rojas can only lose the title if they retire before 30 minutes or if Dalziel wins and they finish tenth. Whatever happens, the final two hours and 45 minutes of the 2012 season will be well worth a look.

MH