Corvette Racing Wins 53rd Rolex 24 By Less Than One Second - Speedway Digest

A 24-hour race came down to a seven-and-a-half minute sprint to the checkered flag in the 53rd Rolex 24 At Daytona with the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R beating the No. 25 BMW Z4 GTE from BMW Team RLL to the stripe by a mere 0.478 seconds. The GT Le Mans (GTLM) class win was Corvette Racing’s first class victory at the Rolex 24 since 2001.

“I’ve been coming here since 2005, so yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of this place until now,” added Ryan Briscoe, Driver – No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R. “It’s just such a tough race. Jan and I were talking about it before we came in, for both of us it’s the first time we’ve ever done the race without going back to the garage. … I think the key was keeping our nose clean, having a fast race car at the end of the day.”

It was a Corvette vs. BMW battle for much of the final quarter of the race with Antonio Garcia holding a comfortable lead in his Corvette over Dirk Werner’s BMW with 20 minutes remaining. That lead quickly evaporated, however, when Prototype Challenge (PC) class leader Colin Braun made contact with the wall coming out of the chicane on the backstretch forcing a full-course caution period. Werner closed the gap throughout the final six laps, but fell just short at the checkered flag with Garcia joining co-drivers Jan Magnussen and Ryan Briscoe in the victory.

“Every time you win here it’s very, very special,” Garcia said. “I’ve been chasing this victory since 2009, even if I won it back then. This is a very unique race. It’s the first race of the year, so it’s very difficult to be at 100 percent right away for the team and for the drivers. Everything ran perfect, and as Ryan (Briscoe) said, we just kept our nose clean, and I had the best car to fight on the last eight minutes of the race.”

Garcia won the Rolex 24 overall in 2009 for Brumos Racing. Corvette Racing did not compete at Daytona from 2002 through 2013 before joining the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship for its inaugural 2014 season.

The No. 4 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R entry of Tommy Milner, Oliver Gavin and Simon Pagenaud was in contention for the race win, but lost four laps after making contact with the No. 66 RG Racing BMW Dinan/Riley Prototype with three hours remaining and finished third.

No. 93 Viper Team Takes Emotional Victory in GT Daytona

It took one full day of racing to decide it, but three SCCA members earned a new watch on Sunday at Daytona International Speedway during the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona after winning their IMSA Tudor United SportsCar Championship class.

Seven-time Pirelli World Challenge race winner Kuno Wittmer, two-time SCCA Pro Racing Trans Am 2 champion Cameron Lawrence and nine-year SCCA member Ben Keating teamed up in the No. 93 TI Automotive Dodge Viper SRT, along with Dominik Farnbacher and Al Carter, to take home the win and the famous prize in GTD after 704 laps, or 2,506.24 miles, around the 3.56-mile circuit.

The team started the race at the back of the field, but made the most of their time and found themselves in the lead, with Wittmer at the wheel, six hours into the race.

“Things are just kind of taking off, and it’s not really anything that I expected it would be,” the 22-year-old Lawrence said after his first endurance race. “I’ve gotten these opportunities, and worked hard so that I could get here. It was always something in the back of my mind, but I’ve always been a fan here and watched it. I never really thought about even driving it until a few years ago. So to be here in my first one and win it with Viper and Riley and TI Automotive is just insane.”

“I think, especially this race, it’s all adrenaline. I probably slept maybe an hour or an hour and a half, even when you’re trying to sleep you just can’t. You’re always thinking about the car and what’s next. It’s a little bit different attitude; all of my stints were longer than a Trans Am race. So it’s a little different mindset, but you’re still flat out almost the entire time.”

The Viper swapped the lead in the closing hours with the No. 22 WeatherTech Porsce 911 GT America co-driven by Cooper MacNeil, who also runs in the SCCA SafeRacer Club Racing program, through pit strategy before ultimately finishing 7.588 seconds in front.

Pirelli World Challenge competitor and race winner Mark Wilkins looked poised to take a win in the Prototype Challenge class until, with under 20 minutes to go, teammate Colin Braun had an incident trying to close out the race in the No. 54 Composite Resources/Flex Box ORECA FLM09/Chevrolet. Braun was hit and spun, possibly breaking a suspension piece, then spun into the wall exiting the bus stop to end their race for good.

The unfortunate ending to the 54 machine, who fell to third at the finish, elevated the No. 16 Autosport Designs Inc./Top 1 Oil ORECA FLM09/Chevrolet co-driven by former Trans Am champion Tomy Drissi to runner-up.

The event was scattered with former SCCA National Champions whose teams or machinery didn’t place at the top of the endurance test. Former American Sedan National Champion Eric Curran finished fifth in the Prototype class in the No. 31 Corvette Daytona Prototype, while three-time Runoffs champion Scott Sharp was out after 13 hours in the No. 41 Honda HPD ARX Prototype and outside the top 10.

In the GTLM class, past Formula Atlantic National Champion and IndyCar star Graham Rahal’s team battled through issues to finish fourth in class but 24-laps behind the leader in the No. 24 BMW Z4 GTE. 1993 Formula F National Champion Anthony Lazzaro had the No. 63 Ferrari 458 Italia in front of the GTD class early in the race, but ultimately finished 13 laps behind the class leaders. Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Champion Robert Thorne helped his No. 45 Audi R8 LMS to 10th in the class, two positions ahead of three-time Runoffs Champion Boris Said’s No. 97 BMW Z4.

The Rolex 24 At Daytona also was the opening round of the four-race Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup. Points were awarded at the six, 12 and 18 hour marks in addition to the finish. Both class winners also won the opening round of the Patrón Endurance Cup with the No. 3 Corvette Racing team scoring 18 points by winning two segments, and placing second in the other two. The No. 93 Riley Motorsports team led three segments in GTD en route to scoring 19 points. Five points are awarded for the winner in each segment, with four points for second, three points for third and two points for fourth on back.

In addition to its GTLM race win, the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R team also won the race’s DEKRA Green Challenge Award. The DEKRA Green Challenge Award is presented to the most environmentally clean, fast and efficient GTLM competitor at each TUDOR Championship race. The DEKRA Green Challenge award is determined through Green Racing protocols established by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International as part of an overarching strategic alliance with IMSA.

A number of GTLM contenders ran into issues in the middle part of the race. Leading into the 10th hour in the GTLM class, Pierre Kaffer pitted the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia with a loss of horsepower. After multiple pit stops to diagnose the issue, Kaffer drove to the garage for repairs and the team later retired from the race after reporting an electrical misfire. Defending race winners Porsche North America were involved in a multi-car incident that took both of its Porsche 911 RSRS out of contention in the 11th hour of the race. Nearing the 18-hour mark Team Falken Tire’s Porsche 911 RSR was running in the top-three, but went behind the wall with a drivetrain issue.

In one of the race’s stranger moments, the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Andy Lally went to the paddock with what was diagnosed as an oil leak. Upon further inspection, however, the team realized it had struck a possum that broke the splitter and tub and into the front of the car.

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Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.