Date: July 3, 2016
Event: Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen (Round 6 of 10)
Series: Prototype division of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship
Location: Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International (3.4-mile, 11-turn road course)
Start/Finish: 4th/4th (Running, completed 197 of 197 laps)
Winner: Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa|Action Express Racing (Corvette DP)
Point Standing: 2nd (180 points, seven out of first)
 
A clean and efficient Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen endurance marathon netted a near-podium finish for brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and veteran Italian Max “The Ax” Angelelli Sunday at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International.
 
They hit town with hopes running high after the Taylor brothers’ dominating victory in Detroit four weekends ago and a share of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship points lead, and those hopes were further bolstered by Ricky Taylor’s stout qualifying effort of fourth Saturday – fastest of the Daytona Prototypes – that was bested only by a trio of lightning-fast LMP2 cars.
 
While two of those three LMP2s expired well before the finish of today’s edition of the annual midsummer endurance marathon, it was the pair of Action Express Racing Corvette DPs and the Michael Shank Racing LMP2 entry that proved to be just too difficult to catch for the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) and left the Taylor brothers and Angelelli just off the podium.
 
“It was still a good day, I guess,” said Ricky Taylor, who drove double stints to start and finish today’s event and enjoyed a tremendous start to the race before finding it difficult to capitalize on a couple of late-race restarts. “Track position was really important. I think if we would’ve been in the top two or three at the end, we would’ve finished there. We had the car to hold them off but it was kind of hard to pass since everyone was just kind of running in a line. We struggled to get going on the late restarts. Once we got going, though, we could run with the leaders but just not get around them. It was just kind of a funny race the way the track position worked out. Our guys had great stops the whole race and they gave us great track position in the beginning and we were able to hold it for a while. By the time we got to the end of the race, we were in the back of the pack a little bit. The car ran great the whole time and the guys executed once again.”
 
From his fourth qualifying position, Taylor made one of his stellar moves typical of late at the start of the race, moving all the way up to second behind polesitter Johannes van Overbeek in the No. 2 Extreme Speed Racing Honda LMP2 car after leapfrogging past the LMP2s of Tristan Nunez and Oswaldo Negri through the fast, sweeping, right-hand turn one. He gradually fell back to fifth by the end of his first fuel-and-tire run, but quick work by the WTR crew during the day’s first pit stop under caution 44 minutes into the race sent him back on track in second behind Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP.
 
“Our car seems to be really good on cold tires for some reason and I don’t know why,” Taylor said of his early race prowess on the restarts. “Also, there’s a real premium on overtaking on the starts and restarts because you can’t get that close on-track with race pace. You have to take every chance you can get. Even though it’s a six-hour race you have to go, go, go every time. We’re always pushing hard.”
 
Taylor held onto second place for the remainder of his early race run before handing the car over to Angelelli at the one-hour, 36-minute mark. The Italian, who rejoined the Taylor brothers this weekend for the third of four Tequila Patron North American Endurance Championship events this weekend, settled in the top-five and enjoyed a trouble-free run on-track despite a malfunctioning drink bottle.
 
“Looking back, I think I played my stint way too conservatively,” said Angelelli, who co-drove to the team’s runner-up effort at the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona and also joined the team at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. “I wanted to do well for (Ricky and Jordan) as they were leading in the championship. I just wasn’t aggressive the way I normally am and I do regret that. The repaved surface here is great. The Glen is beautiful. It’s the best track. We have a little issue with the drink bottle. For me, it wasn’t that big of a problem since I just did one stint. But thinking about Ricky and Jordan when they double-stint, I knew it was going to be tough for them.”
 
Jordan Taylor also ran a solid double-stint before handing the car back over to his older brother for the closing stretch. He kept the Konica Minolta Corvette in the top-five and, like his brother later in the race, led a couple of laps during a round of green-flag pit stops.
 
“My stint was a little up and down,” Taylor said. “We were sixth or seventh when I got in and we made a good strategy call on tires for my second stint to leave them on and I got all the way up to third and had good pace on double-stinted tires. I got clipped by GT cars on the left side and the right side, so it was definitely an exciting stint. It was good to get back to Watkins Glen on the new surface and get racing. I think the new surface offered better racing because we could use more and better lines. Before, with concrete patches, it made it tough to race side-by-side. It was a fun race and it was a fun stint for me. We came up a little short but, after some bad runs here in the past, I think leaving here with a fourth isn’t too bad in the big picture.”
 
Ricky Taylor resumed in fourth when he took over for his final double-stint but could only move to the front during the final round of green-flag stops. He followed the race-winning No. 5 Action Express Corvette of Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa, the runner-up No. 31 Action Express Corvette DP of Eric Curran and Dane Cameron, and the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Honda LMP2 car of Negri, John Pew and Olivier Pla across the finish line. The Konica Minolta Corvette was the last car on the lead lap.
 
The Konica Minolta Corvette and No. 5 Action Express Corvette entered the weekend tied for the championship lead. Today’s results dropped the Konica Minolta Corvette to second, seven points behind the No. 5 Action Express Corvette and tied with the No. 31 Action Express Corvette.
 
“I guess you can’t win them all but, with our qualifying effort, I thought we were clearly going to be the best of the rest,” team owner Wayne Taylor said. “But in the end, the Action Express cars did a good job, first and second. We dropped from leading the points to being tied with the 31. It’s not really a big deal right now – you want to be leading all the time, but we have four races left with the best drivers and the best crew and the best team. We’ve just got to figure out what went wrong here because we missed something in the race. Throughout practice, qualifying, even this morning’s warm-up, all the drivers and crew were saying how great the car was. But we couldn’t seem to match the others in the race and we can’t quite pinpoint why that was. We just need to regroup, get it back together like this team always does, and head off positively to Mosport.”
 
The 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is back in action next weekend with Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, where the Taylor brothers are the defending race-winners after also finishing on the podium in 2014. FS1 will provide live television coverage beginning at 11 a.m. EDT.
 
 
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