Grand-Am, Brumos Porsche 250, Daytona – Race Report
Pruett & Rojas March Relentlessly On
 
Drivers Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas of the TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing team celebrated the 100th race for the Daytona Prototype class by scoring an impressive victory in Saturday's Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway, adding to their record win totals in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series' leading division.

Pruett took the lead with one hour remaining and led all but one of the remaining laps in the No. 01 TELMEX BMW/Riley started by Rojas. Pruett beat Rolex 24 At Daytona winner Ryan Dalziel to the checkered flag by 24.304 seconds, extending his DP-leading total to 28 victories; it was the 29th triumph for the Ganassi team.

"It's great for our team to win the 100th DP race - that's incredible," Pruett said. "That says a lot for Grand-Am for what they've achieved and where it's going. It's a special mark for our team. Today we didn't have the fastest race car, but we raced smart and we raced clean and we did what we had to do. Good things happen to good people."

The victory came only four days after a penalty resulting from post-race inspection at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course cost the team 25 points, cutting their lead to seven points in the battle for the DP championship title. Pruett and Rojas now lead Ryan Dalziel by 13 points.

"I don't know how to describe racing with the extra weight," Rojas said. "Try running a sprint with a backpack and then try to slow down. But we were able to stay focused, and Scott hasn't made a single mistake all season."

Dalziel - who won the season-opening Rolex 24 with Action Express Racing - joined Mike Forest in the No. 8 Corsa Car Care BMW/Riley. Both drivers led the race for a total of 13 laps; their efforts came one day after they missed qualifying due to an accident in opening practice. It was Dalziel's third consecutive podium finish with three different teams at Daytona. He finished third in last year's Brumos Porsche 250, co-driving with Bill Lester for Orbit Racing.

Ozz Negri and John Pew took third in the No. 60 Crown Royal XR Ford/Riley, their third podium finish of the season. Negri held off David Donohue, who co-drove with Darren Law in the No. 59 Brumos Porsche/Riley.

Memo Gidley and Dion von Moltke finished fifth in the No. 77 McDonald's/PR Newswire Ford/Dallara.

Negri, Donohue and Law participated in the first Daytona Prototype race, the 2003 Rolex 24. Donohue and Law have run in all 100 races.

In the GT class, Andy Lally passed Joey Hand with nine laps remaining to win his third race of the season, joining RJ Valentine in the No. 66 TRG Porsche GT3.

"Joey and I have had great battles at almost every track we go to, and it's great to be back up here," Lally said. "This was RJ's first race in a year-and-a-half, and he showed up here and gave great feedback. He drove awesome in wet conditions during practice yesterday, and he was hauling the mail early in today's race."

Hand finished second, joined by Paul Dalla Lana and Bill Auberlen in the No. 94 Turner Motorsport BMW M6. Andrew Davis and Robin Liddell finished third, giving the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro its first podium finish in six races.

"Andy Lally and I have been racing together since we were kids, and we've had only one kind of battle - great ones," said Hand, who joined Auberlen in giving Turner Motorsport its first GT victory in the most recent race at Mid-Ohio. "Andy was coming on strong today, and his car was strong today. I wasn't much of a match for him today."

"My stint was just pure perfection," Auberlen said. "The car was good and the setup was good. We didn't have much time to work on the setup because we were going from rain to dry in the practice sessions and we experienced a misfire during qualifying. But luckily we were at Daytona with the car earlier in the year, so we had a pretty good setup on the car for the race.

"Andy Lally pitted with about 50 minutes to go – he put on four tires and fueled up. We came in and put only right side tires on. Joey did a great job trying to defend the position, but our car wasn't fast enough to race the Porsche. We took a little bit of a risk on the pitstop, only taking on right side tires and we short-fueled the car, just to make it to the end. Andy was able to get around Joey for the win, but you cannot be mad at a podium finish."

“It was a very tough race physically as we had problems again with the cooling system in the car but the balance of the car was good throughout the weekend," said Liddell. "Driving for two hours in the heat with no cool suit was very hard and we had no drinks bottle for the last hour; it was one of my hardest races physically. We also had to be pretty cautious with regards to preserving (particularly) the rear tires as they would start to go off after only several laps of hard driving.

“We had some good battles and towards the end I had to dig really deep to try and keep the No. 68 Mazda behind as I was pretty done-in physically by this stage. The Mazda actually made it ahead of me going into turn one on the outside but he chopped across a little and we made contact which allowed me to stay inside of him.  We then drove side by side for several corners before I got back ahead. With two laps to go the No.69 Mazda out braked himself in the bus stop and that allowed me to pass him fort the final podium place.  I certainly I didn't mind taking the good luck for a change! I think without the issues we had we would have been second but it was still a solid result.”

Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal finished fourth in the No. 69 FXDD Mazda RX-8. They lead the GT championship standings by nine points over Lally and 13 over Sylvain Tremblay, who finished sixth in the No. 70 Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8 co-driven by Jonathan Bomarito.

Ricky Taylor started the race from the pole and led the opening 13 laps. He was running second after his first pit stop when he spun and impacted the guardrail in the No. 10 SunTrust Ford/Dallara. Co-driver Max Angelelli took over and finished ninth.

Jon Fogarty, who was involved in the Taylor incident, finished seventh in the No. 99 GAINSCO Chevrolet/Riley co-driven by Alex Gurney. The defending Daytona Prototype champions ran in contention before losing first gear midway through the race.

Other leaders who encountered problems were Brian Frisselle, who led 13 laps in the No. 6 Michael Shank Racing Ford/Riley shared with Michael Valiante, and Buddy Rice, who came back from a spin to finish eighth in the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Porsche/Coyote co-driven by Antonio Garcia.

Tremblay dominated the early stages of the GT race before cutting a tire, resulting in a long stop. Kelly Collins also led the class in the No. 28 LG Motorsports Corvette.

The next race for the Grand-Am Rolex Series will be the New Jersey Motorsports Park 250 presented by Crown Royal, set for Sunday, July 19, in Millville, N.J.