Twice-Around-the-Clock Marathon
SunTrust's Racing's Angelelli, Taylor and Briscoe
Ready for 2011 Edition of the Rolex 24 At Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Jan. 25, 2011) - Another year older, another year wiser, and seemingly more ready than ever, SunTrust Racing heads to Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway to open the 2011 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series season with this weekend's 49th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Italian driving ace Max Angelelli, the one constant in the cockpit for the SunTrust Racing program since it joined the Rolex Series in 2004, is joined for the second year in a row by 21-year-old Ricky Taylor as his full-time co-driver after the duo last season brought SunTrust its highest finish in the Rolex Series championship since 2005. They welcome a familiar face to the lineup for this weekend's twice-around-the-clock marathon in 29-year-old Australian IZOD IndyCar Series star Ryan Briscoe.

Sporting the familiar "Solid Is Lightning Fast" tagline on its sidepods for the third season in a row, the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Dallara Prototype also welcomes another old friend back to the fold this season - General Motors power in the form of Earnhardt Childress Technologies-built Chevrolet engines under the deck lid. The SunTrust effort was powered by General Motors' Pontiac brand from 2004 through 2008 before switching to Roush Yates Racing Ford engines in 2009 and 2010.

Add it all up and there's plenty of cause for optimism in the SunTrust Racing camp. The last time Angelelli welcomed back a Taylor as his full-time co-driver for a second-consecutive Rolex Series season, he was hoisting the champion's trophy at season's end. That was in 2005, when Angelelli and three-time sports car racing champion Wayne Taylor kicked off the year with a dominating victory at the Rolex 24. Co-driving with Frenchman Emmanuel Collard, they led a race-high 282 of the 710 race laps en route to the top spot on the podium. Angelelli and Wayne Taylor then went on to win four more races, stood on the podium 10 times in all in 14 events, and in the process they never gave up first place in the point standings and set a record that still stands by finishing all 2,056 race laps contested that year.

This year's switch to Chevrolet engines also puts the SunTrust team back in the company of General Motors power that helped deliver 12 of SunTrust's 15 Rolex Series wins, 35 of its 48 podium finishes, and 10 of its 13 pole positions to date. Moreover, team owner Wayne Taylor's first career Rolex 24 win as a driver and his second career International Motor Sports Association championship came with General Motors' Oldsmobile engines in 1996.

Angelelli and Ricky Taylor look to pick up where they left off last season and certainly hope the bad luck that plagued the SunTrust team at last year's Rolex 24 remains a thing of the past. Despite Angelelli's pole qualifying effort and fastest race lap, the SunTrust team had to battle fiercely just to finish sixth last January at Daytona as numerous extended trips to the pit lane and the garage to repair suspension, gearbox and other maladies cost 44 laps. But after leaving Daytona, the Angelelli-Ricky Taylor combo proved to be championship-caliber the rest of the way as they scored seven podium finishes - highlighted by their Memorial Day victory at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn. - two pole qualifying positions by Taylor, and a solid second-place finish in the championship. Any other year, those kinds of results might have been enough to lay claim to the Rolex Series title, but the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates tandem of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas ran away with the top prize behind a previously unthinkable nine victories in 12 races.

Briscoe, whose full-time job is teammate to Helio Castroneves and Will Power on the three-car Team Penske IZOD IndyCar Series entry, will be making his seventh career Rolex Series appearance and his fifth at the Rolex 24. He drove a pair of races with the SunTrust team in 2006, contributing to podium finishes both times at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International in the June six-hour event and the August sprint race. He was slated to drive in that year's Rolex 24 but never got a chance as Collard was involved in an accident that ended the SunTrust team's weekend early. Briscoe also finished on the podium in the 2008 Rolex 24 when he co-drove the No. 9 Toshiba Pontiac Riley that was a collaborative effort between Team Penske and Wayne Taylor Racing alongside Castroneves and former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Kurt Busch in the driver's seat.

Practice for the 49th Rolex 24 At Daytona begins Thursday morning with qualifying set for 3:45 p.m. EST. Race time Saturday is 3:30 p.m. with the first seven hours of live television by SPEED beginning at 3 p.m. SPEED's second seven-hour segment begins at 9 a.m. Sunday. Live radio coverage will be provided by the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128 in four segments - Saturday from 3-5 p.m. and 8-8:30 p.m., and Sunday from 7-7:30 a.m. and 2-4 p.m. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions can be found at www.grand-am.com, and now on mobile devices at m.grand-am.com/laptrax.

Max Angelelli, co-driver of the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Chevrolet Dallara:

You're back for another new season, your eighth with the SunTrust team. Do you feel anything special about this year's renewal of the Rolex 24?

"Every year is a special year. Every year, you have something in the mix that makes it different, that makes it nicer. This year, we have Ryan. Second, Ricky and I are now well-established. There is no newcomer or rookie on the team. We've been together full-time for more than a year and we're proven. We've shown we are capable of winning a championship together."

You weren't the fastest at the Roar Before the 24 test days earlier this month, like you were last year. How do you feel about your chances of winning this year's Rolex 24?

"At the test, we weren't the fastest, but we are very much in the mix. We're right up there with Ganassi and all the big guys. We'll be competitive. The No. 10 SunTrust Racing car will be one of the cars to beat. It's a 24-hour race, so you don't need a superfast car to win. Look at the last two 24-hour events. They weren't won by the fastest cars, and so this makes us even more positive and optimistic. I don't know the story behind the lap times the other guys did at the test. But I know what we did. We're as happy as we can be with where we ended up. The last two years, I ended up being the fastest in the test and we didn't win the race. I'd much rather exchange those fastest lap times in practice for a victory in the Rolex 24. This year, I think we have our strongest driver lineup, yet. I don't want to get too excited, but after all the things that happened to us last year, we're due for a clean race from beginning to end."

What are your thoughts about the new Earnhardt Childress Chevrolet engine after the test days?

"The new Chevrolet makes the dynamic of the car identical. The changes in weight distribution are minimal. In my opinion, we might need to be allowed to utilize some more horsepower to battle more fairly with the BMW engines. We have it in the GM engine package, but we are not allowed to utilize it per the series engine rules. But, overall, I'm happy with the performance of the engine and the reliability we expect to benefit from at the 24-hour."

How did you enjoy the new pavement around the superspeedway portion of the racetrack during test days?

"It's new paving, but the track is still the same, the corners are still the same. It's slightly easier to get around, especially going into turn one. Everybody will b