Date: Aug. 9, 2015
Event: Continental Tire Road Race Showcase (Round 8 of 10)
Series: Prototype division of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship
Location: Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (4-mile, 14-turn road course)
Start/Finish: 4th / 8th (Running, completed 74 of 76 laps)
Point Standing: 5th (194 points, 26 out of first)
Winner: Dane Cameron and Eric Curran of Action Express Racing (Corvette DP)

Brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP team for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) hit town for Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase riding high after a hard-fought team effort that led to victory at the last round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, and hanging onto realistic hopes of sweeping the remaining races and hoisting the championship trophy at season’s end.

Through the first hour-plus of today’s two-hour, 40 minute contest on the iconic 4-mile, 14-turn Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, things were going very much according to plan as older brother Ricky Taylor, who qualified fourth and deftly maneuvered his way forward to second place over the first 30 minutes of green-flag racing, emerged in the lead thanks to one of those come-to-be-routine stellar pit stops by the WTR crew during the race’s first caution period.

He kept the sleek, black racing machine at the point until pitting to hand things over to younger brother Jordan Taylor at the one-hour, 17-minute mark, and the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP resumed in third place after a slight struggle to get rolling after the pit stop. Taylor comfortably held down the third position in hopes of setting the stage for another strategic move to the lead over the final round of pit stops, just like the team did at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario last month en route to the second victory of the season.

But, less than 30 minutes after taking over the driving duties, something gave way in the rear suspension and Taylor pitted for repairs, losing two laps that ultimately dropped the him out of contention and leaving the team to settle for a disappointing eighth-place finish.

“It wasn’t a great result, obviously,” Taylor said afterward. “I got in and we had some issues on the pit stop and I couldn’t get rolling. We were set back to third at that point, but I still felt competitive in that position. The car was the best it had been all weekend. So, I felt confident that, if we had a yellow and we bunched back up again, we would have a shot at them. But, somewhere along my run, something happened with the rear of the car and we had to come in and fix it. That took us out of contention. Basically, from there, we just ran laps in case somebody in front of us had trouble in order to maximize points. Looking ahead at the next two races, the championship is pretty much out of our hands, so we’ll just have to try to win those two races.”

The eighth-place finish dropped the team from fourth to fifth in the standings, 26 points behind today’s second-place finishing No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP duo of Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa, who retook first place in the championship with two races remaining.

Today’s race winner was the No. 31 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Dane Cameron and Eric Curran, who hoisted the checkered flag for the second time this season. In third place was the polesitting No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford of Scott Pruett and Joey Hand, who reached the podium for the third time in eight races this season.

“The guys did a great job transforming our car from qualifying – we made tons of changes,” Ricky Taylor said. “Still, I don’t think we had the pace of the 31 and the 5, but we were in position to go racing and lead a lot of laps. The start was good, I managed to get up to third, then second when the 01 had an issue, and then the guys did a great stop that put us in the lead. From there, we just controlled the race. We had a good car. It went pretty neutral the whole run, which is pretty unique here at Road America, which is a positive. But we just can’t seem to catch a break here. Every year, we seem to have a new issue that keeps us from winning the race. Hopefully, we can come back here next year and get all those bugs out of our system.”

For the first several laps after restarting in the lead thanks to the team’s stellar pit stop, Taylor did a masterful job of holding off the aggressive challenges of Fittipaldi and Cameron in the Action Express Corvettes, but he eventually pulled away and was able to maintain a comfortable lead through the end of his opening stint.

“It’s hard to put into words what you feel after a race like this, except for the fact we went into the race having qualified fourth and really not thinking we had a podium car,” team owner Wayne Taylor said. “But, Ricky did a tremendous job moving us forward after the start of the race, and then the guys’ pit stop put us in the lead outright, and Ricky was put under heavy pressure from Fittipaldi and Cameron and never put a wheel wrong. That made us feel we were in a really good position. Then Jordan went out and said something broke in the rear suspension – something that’s never happened before, a broken camber shim, which we’ll figure out exactly what happened when we get back to the shop. Overall, it was really devastating. However, I’m really happy for Ricky because he did a tremendous job. I’m happy for the guys because they always do a great job on pit stops. I’m just sorry for the sponsors, Chevy, Konica Minolta. But it’s racing and we’ll just have to go on from here and try to win out.”

The penultimate round of the 2015 Tudor United SportsCar Championship will be the Lone Star Le Mans set for Sept. 17-19 at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Saturday’s two-hour, 40-minute race will be broadcast live by FOX Sports 2 beginning at 12:30 p.m. EDT, and will be rebroadcast in its entirety at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.


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