Date: May 29, 2015
Event: Chevrolet Sports Car Classic (Round 5 of 10)
Series: Prototype division of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship
Location: The Streets of Belle Isle in Detroit (2.36-mile, 13-turn temporary street course)
Pole Winner: Christian Fittipaldi of Action Express Racing (1:24.746 at 99.828 mph)
Wayne Taylor Racing: 2nd by Ricky Taylor (1:24.796 at 99.769 mph)

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) will start Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic from the outside of the front row after TUDOR United SportsCar Championship qualifying Friday evening on The Streets of Belle Isle temporary circuit near downtown Detroit.

Ricky Taylor, who with his younger brother and co-driver Jordan Taylor is seeking the team’s third consecutive Belle Isle victory this weekend, put the Konica Minolta Corvette on the front row for the third race in a row with a fast lap of 1 minute, 24.796 seconds at 99.769 mph around the 2.36-mile, 13-turn temporary street circuit. Taylor’s bid for a third consecutive pole position for the team fell just five-hundredths of a second short of Christian Fittipaldi’s pole-winning lap in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP. Taylor will start second in the field of 23 car-and-driver combinations that will take the green flag for Saturday’s one-hour, 40-minute event.

“It’s a shame, but I guess it’s always a nice thing when you’re disappointed about qualifying second but, man, Christian did a good lap,” said Taylor, who swapped fast laps with Fittipaldi several times early in the session before catching the slower No. 31 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Eric Curran and never getting a clear lap the rest of the way. “I said to the guys on the radio that I haven’t pushed that hard and gotten that close to the wall, ever. So, hats off to those (No. 5 Action Express) guys. They seem to be back on their game after a couple of races of being in a bit of a funk. Tomorrow, it’ll back to that hard, IMSA racing that makes this such a great series. It’s going to be a really tough fight, especially in the wet. I must’ve sounded a bit panicked in the car when I was asking our guys if we had time for another lap if I backed off for a bit after catching the 31. On that lap, when I caught him, my guys said to keep pushing. I think I might have had a little more had he not been there in front of me, but I think they (the No. 5 of Fittipaldi) had the package to beat today so, again, hats off to them.”

The top-five qualifiers for Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic at Detroit’s Belle Isle are:

1. Action Express Racing (No. 5 Corvette DP) with Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa (1:24.746 at 99.828 mph).

2. Wayne Taylor Racing (No. 10 Corvette DP) with Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor (1:24.796 at 99.769 mph).

3. Spirit of Daytona Racing (No. 90 Corvette DP) with Michael Valiante and Richard Westbrook (1:25.156 at 99.347 mph).

4. Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (No. 01 Ford Riley) with Scott Pruett and Joey Hand (1:25.987 at 98.387 mph).

5. Action Express Racing (No. 31 Corvette DP) with Eric Curran and Dane Cameron (1:26.009 at 98.362 mph).

Race time is 12:05 p.m. EDT Saturday with FOX Sports 2 providing a live telecast beginning at noon. FOX Sports 1 will rebroadcast the race beginning at 2 p.m. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions is available at IMSA.com and the IMSA smartphone app.


Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. is a leader in information management focused on enterprise content, technology optimization and cloud services. Our solutions help organizations improve their speed to market, manage technology costs, and facilitate the sharing of information to increase productivity. Clients trust Konica Minolta to help them envision how they can achieve their goals and deliver innovative solutions to give shape to their ideas. Konica Minolta has won numerous awards and recognition, including placement in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2014 Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services (MPS) and Managed Content Services (MCS). The company has also been recognized as the #1 Brand for Customer Loyalty in the MFP Office Copier Market by Brand Keys for seven consecutive years, and “A3 MFP Line of the Year” award winner from Buyers Laboratory LLC for an unprecedented four consecutive years. In 2012, Konica Minolta received “Document Imaging Solutions Line of the Year” recognition from BLI. Konica Minolta, Inc. has also been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for two years in a row. For more information, please visit www.CountOnKonicaMinolta.com and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Konica Minolta, as title sponsor, highlights Wayne Taylor Racing’s existing lineup of partners featuring Chevy Racing, Siemens PLM Software, Dallara Automobili, and OMP America.