Grand Am raced at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal—a beautiful circuit and equally challenging, with very fast straights followed by very hard braking zones. The Montreal circuit is one of the best street courses in the world, and the racing met the standard of the setting.
The race opened with action and never slowed down.
From the drop of the green flag, when 2nd-place Daytona Prototype driver Ricky Taylor forced his #10 SunTrust Dallara-Chevrolet passed polesitter Jon Fogarty’s #99 Gainsco Riley-Chevrolet—and fifteen seconds later, when the 2nd-place GT car, Andrew Davis in the #59 Brumos Porsche did the same to the #31 Marsh Corvette of Boris Said—there were intense fights for the lead in both classes.
In the end, the #99 Gainsco car beat the #10 SunTrust machine across the line by 1.932 seconds. Max Angelelli, Taylor’s co-driver, thrashed the car to its limit but for some reason the Dallara-Chevrolet was a few mph down in top speed—and still came within two seconds of the win.
“We’ve been trying really hard to win here the last five years,” said Alex Gurney, co-driver of the #99 Gainsco Riley-Chevrolet. “We’ve had fast cars, but were never able to capitalize. Today we knew our car was really good.
“After Watkins Glen, we wanted to win the last two races, and I’m stoked we were able to pull it off here.”
Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas in the usually quick Telmex-Ganassi Riley-BMW couldn’t find the pace and finished fifth, but still maintained a 20-point lead over Taylor and Angelelli in the SunTrust car with only one race left on the schedule.
Pruett and Rojas would almost have to crash to fail to win their third consecutive Daytona Prototype championship, but anything can happen—that’s why they run the races.
In GT, Robin Liddell in the No.57 Stevenson Camaro beat Jonathan Bomarito in the #70 SpeedSource Mazda by a mere 0.289 seconds, with the Dane Cameron’s #41 Dempsey Mazda another tenth of a second behind—as close to a three-way photo as can be imagined.
“Every lap for the last 30 minutes felt like a qualifying lap. We were not leaving anything on the table trying to stay ahead,” Robin Liddell told Grandam.com.
Jordan Taylor and Bill Lester, drivers of the #88 Autohaus Camaro, got spun early and never got back to the front, finishing ninth, but with 294 points still preserve a three-point lead in GT over Leh Keen and Andrew Davis in the #59 Brumos Porsche and Jonathan Bomarito and Sylvain Tremblay are two points back in third, with 289.
Paul Dalla Lana, who swaps co-drivers in the #94 Turner Motorsports BMW, has 279 points and is very much in the hunt.
The GT race is totally up in the air going into the season finale at Mid-Ohio in September.
| Grand Am Rolex Montreal 200 | ||||||
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| # | Cls | Pic | Drivers | Team/Car | Laps |
| 1 | 99 | DP | 1 | Fogarty / Gurney | GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing / Chevrolet Riley | 73 |
| 2 | 10 | DP | 2 | Angelelli / Taylor | SunTrust Racing / Chevrolet Dallara | 73 |
| 3 | 5 | DP | 3 | Donohue / Law | Action Express Racing / Porsche Riley | 73 |
| 4 | 90 | DP | 4 | Edwards / Garcia | Spirit of Daytona Racing / Chevrolet Coyote | 73 |
| 5 | 01 | DP | 5 | Pruett / Rojas | Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates / BMW Riley | 73 |
| 6 | 9 | DP | 6 | Barbosa / France | Action Express Racing / Porsche Riley | 73 |
| 7 | 61 | DP | 7 | Frisselle / Wilkins | AIM Autosport / BMW Riley | 72 |
| 8 | 77 | DP | 8 | Frisselle / Richard | Doran Racing / Ford Dallara | 72 |
| 9 | 60 | DP | 9 | Negri / Pew | Michael Shank Racing / Ford Riley | 72 |
| 10 | 2 | DP | 10 | Dalziel / Popow | Starworks Motorsport / Porsche Riley | 72 |
| 11 | 57 | GT | 1 | Bremer / Liddell | Stevenson Motorsports / Camaro GT.R | 68 |
| 12 | 70 | GT | 2 | Bomarito / Tremblay | SpeedSource / Mazda RX-8 | 68 |
| 13 | 41 | GT | 3 | Cameron / Gue | Dempsey Racing / Mazda RX-8 | 68 |
| 14 | 94 | GT | 4 | Dalla Lana / Johnson | Turner Motorsport / BMW M3 | 68 |
| 15 | 59 | GT | 5 | Davis / Keen | Brumos Racing / Porsche GT3 | 68 |
| 16 | 42 | GT | 6 | Edwards / Nonnamaker | Team Sahlen / Mazda RX-8 | 68 |
| 17 | 44 | GT | 7 | Potter / Stanton | Magnus Racing / Porsche GT3 | 68 |
| 18 | 07 | GT | 8 | Schaldach / Skeen | Banner Racing / Camaro GT.R | 68 |
| 19 | 88 | GT | 9 | Lester / Taylor | Autohaus Motorsports / Camaro GT.R | 67 |
| 20 | 69 | GT | 10 | Assentato / Segal | SpeedSource / Mazda RX-8 | 67 |
| 21 | 40 | GT | 11 | Dempsey / Foster | Dempsey Racing / Mazda RX-8 | 66 |
| 22 | 43 | GT | 12 | Nonnamaker / Nonnamaker / Nonnamaker | Team Sahlen / Mazda RX-8 | 65 |
| 23 | 30 | GT | 13 | Long / Mauro | Racers Edge Motorsports / Mazda RX-8 | 65 |
| 24 | 8 | DP | 11 | Dalziel / Potolicchio | Starworks Motorsport / Ford Riley | 59 |
| 25 | 31 | GT | 14 | Kelly / Said | Marsh Racing / Corvette | 58 |
