BRASELTON, Ga.—Brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Dallara-Corvette took the overall victory in the inaugural Tudor United Sportscar Championship season finale, the ten-hour Petit Le Mans.
The Taylor brothers and Angelelli completed 400 laps of the 2.54 Road Atlanta racetrack, at an average speed of about 100 mph.—not a record-setting pace, but not bad considering the race was interrupted by a record 13 caution periods.
The WTR team battled the eventual series champions Action Express Racing for the entire ten hours, swapping the lead a dozen times. WTR’s margin of victory was a mere 11 seconds; a dropped tool on a pit stop, the slightest driver error could have reversed the result, but the team performed flawlessly.
Wayne Taylor was part of the winning team at the first Petit Le Mans in 1998, so it is fitting that his team, and his sons, should win the inaugural Tudor championship running of Petit. The win was the hundredth for WTR, and the second of the season.
Team Falken Tire repeated its 2013 win in GT Le Mans, again beating the factory teams—including the factory Porsche team. The #17 Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR driven by Wolf Henzler, Bryan Sellers, and Marco Holzer set a new GT race lap record of 1:18.572 on the way to completing 391 laps and finishing 37 seconds ahead of the Porsche North America RSR of Michael Christiansen, Patrick Long, and Earl Bamber.
The win in Prototype Challenge looked to belong to 8Star, but class leader Sean Rayhall got pushed off course only 11 laps from the end of the race, allowing the #8 Starworks Oreca FLM09 of Mirco Schultis, Renger van der Zande, and Alex Popow. Rayhall and co-drivers Eric Lux and Tom Kimber-Smith ended up 20th.
Audi, the only manufacturer in TTD which hadn’t managed a win all season, finally scored when Paul Miller Racing’s #48 R8 LMS driven by Matthew Bell, Christopher Haase, and Bryce Miller came home a scant three seconds ahead of the #58 Porsche 911 America of Snow Racing driven by Madison Snow, Jan Heylen, and Patrick Dempsey.
The Patron North American Endurance Championship was also decided at Petit Le Mans, with Action Express winning in the prototype class for Chevrolet, Porsche North America taking GT Le Mans honors, and Aim Autosport earning the GT Daytona award for Ferrari.
Complete results and analysis to follow.
