Wayne Taylor Racing: Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen Race Report

The combination of perfect strategy, the fastest pit stops, and superior driving in both dry and wet – sometimes even treacherous – conditions by the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) trio of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and veteran Italian Max “The Ax” Angelelli had the rest of the field covered like, well, a really huge umbrella over the first five-plus hours of Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International.

But even though the Taylor brothers and Angelelli combined to lead a race-high 55 of 160 laps around the legendary 3.4-mile, 11-turn road circuit in New York’s Finger Lakes Region and appeared headed for their second dominating victory in the last five years at the annual midsummer endurance classic, an ever-so-slight misstep with 48 minutes remaining pulled the plug on it all and left the No. 10 team with an ever-so-disappointing sixth-place finish for the second race in a row.

Having just tallied the team’s 55th lead lap as he led the field across the stripe on a wet restart with 50 minutes to go, Ricky Taylor did a remarkable job holding off the aggressive pursuits of second-place Joey Hand in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford and Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP around 10 of the iconic racetrack’s 11 turns. But, in the blink of an eye, Taylor lost control of his Corvette DP in the short chute between the left-hand turn 10 and the right-hand turn 11 that leads onto the front straight. He made heavy contact with a tire barrier, lost the front-end bodywork off the car, and made heavy contact with the SAFER Barrier, heavily damaging the right rear of the car.

Taylor was able to limp back into the pits, but repairs proved to be too extensive and the car was retired with 39 minutes to go for its first DNF (did not finish) since last August at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Taylor admitted being the first car in line around a heavily waterlogged racetrack proved to be a huge disadvantage.

“I feel terrible, especially because our car was really, really good,” he said. “It’s hard to be the leader, sometimes, experimenting with the grip. I made a mistake and it’s as simple as that. With an hour to go, we have to be pushing for every inch we can get. I feel bad for all of our guys and Konica Minolta and everybody involved with our team. The positive was that we had a really, really good car and we had a shot at winning. I had a lot of confidence – in the wet, especially. I just made a tiny mistake and there’s not a whole lot of room for error here at Watkins Glen.”

It was the gutsiest strategy call of the race gave the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP a sizeable advantage over the rest of the field at the four-hour mark. One of the WTR crew’s typical lightning-fast pit stops put the car in the lead for the second time in the race with Jordan Taylor behind the wheel with two hours, 35 minutes to go. The rain that first appeared at the race’s midpoint began to come down heaving as the four-hour mark approached and the field, one-by-one, pitted for rain tires as puddles quickly began to accumulate on the back side of the racetrack while the frontstretch remained dry. Taylor continued to turn fast laps on slick tires despite the mixed conditions and the team allowed him to stay on-track. He opened up a 90-second lead on the rest of the field before finally opting to pit for rain tires, which occurred at the four-hour mark. He turned the cockpit over to his brother at that point, and Ricky Taylor easily was able to return to the race in the lead, which he stretched to some 25 seconds before the race was red-flagged briefly for treacherous conditions with 90 minutes remaining.

“When it’s changing conditions like it was, we usually leave it to the driver to determine what kind of tires to call for,” Jordan Taylor said about being the last driver to pit for rain tires. “It’s hard for the teams to dictate how wet it is and what the car’s doing. They were keeping me updated on lap times and I was quite comfortable on the slicks in the damp conditions while we had temperature in the tires. So, I was fine to keep going. And when we felt our times were getting matched by the guys with the wet tires, we decided that was a good crossover point to go to wets, ourselves. I think we were the best, strategy-wise, staying out to make up time on hot tires. So I think that was a good move in the middle of the race.”

After starting fourth on a grid set by championship points after Saturday’s qualifying session was aborted due to weather conditions, Ricky Taylor did a masterful job keeping the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP near the front of the pack during his opening stint today. He pitted at the one-hour, 35-minute mark to hand things over to Angelelli, who donned a firesuit for the first time since co-driving to a second-place finish with the Taylor brothers at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March.

Angelelli stayed in the top-two before pitting to turn things over to Jordan Taylor just short of the two-hour, 30-minute mark, and the team sent the younger Taylor brother back on track in the lead for the first time today with its deft pit work.

“It was great to be back in the car,” said Angelelli, who will be back in the car one more time this season for the fourth of the four races in the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup – the season-ending Petit Le Mans in early October. “I just loved it. The whole team did a great job and all three of our drivers were strong and drove very well. It reminded me of Petit Le Mans last year, where we won and everybody drove well and the car performed very well. So, I’m happy from that standpoint and I’m looking forward to getting back in the car for the Petit Le Mans. Otherwise, it was a shame how things ended up for us today. That’s how it is with these kinds of conditions, but the team certainly deserved much better than that.”

With the sixth-place finish, the No. 10 team dropped from 12 to 22 points out of the championship lead. The race-winning No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP of Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante took over sole possession of first place in the standings, five points ahead of the Nos. 5 and 31 Action Express Corvette DPs, and 15 ahead of the No. 01 Ganassi Prototype.

“I’m disappointed, obviously, for Konica Minolta, Team Chevy, and the team, and I feel really bad for Ricky,” team owner Wayne Taylor said. “He was doing such an unbelievable job in the wet. As he said, when you’re leading and conditions are that bad, sometimes things happen and, like he said, he made a mistake. I’m just so upset for everybody because the car was so good. We clearly dominated in the rain. And on our pit stops we beat everybody, every time. I just don’t know what else to say.”

Next up for the 2015 Tudor United SportsCar Championship is the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix two weeks hence (July 10-12) at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute race will be broadcast live by FOX Sports 1 beginning at noon EDT.

Contact:

Laz.Denes@TrueSpeedCommunication.com

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