SportsCars

Taylor Brothers go flag-to-flag in Long Beach

The Taylor Brothers race to victory

One of the appealing aspects of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship is the variety of the races – the season opener was the Rolex 24 At Daytona, followed by the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, then the Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase on the tight Long Beach seaside street course.

The Long Beach race is 100 minutes long. Using that metric, Daytona is 1,440 minutes, Sebring 720 minutes – three races, three massive differences in length.

Does that make a lot of difference?

Apparently not, as cream rises to the top, no matter if it takes 100 or 1,400 minutes. The overall winner, the No. 10 Konica Minolta Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype of Wayne Taylor Racing, driven by Taylor’s two sons, Ricky and Jordan, has been strong all year but hasn’t managed a victory.

The weekend started well for the team, though, as Ricky Taylor qualified the car on the pole, his first pole since the TUDOR Championship debuted in January, 2014.

It was a welcome redemption for the No. 10 Corvette DP, which suffered a penalty for a violation of driver’s time behind the wheel and was dropped to a 16th-place class finish in the 16-car Prototype field. The team rallied back to a second-place finish at Sebring.

“It’s a so great to win at Long Beach," Ricky Taylor said. “What an atmosphere, what an event."

Second at Long Beach was the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost Riley DP of Scott Pruett and Joey Hand, the defending winners of the event. Third was the No. 90 Corvette DP of VisitFlorida.com Racing car driven by Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante.

A spirited final stint by Dane Cameron earned a fourth-place result for the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Corvette DP from Action Express Racing, followed by its No. 5 team Corvette DP shared by defending series champions Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi. The No. 5 entry was limped home with powertrain issues – that car was second at Daytona and first at Sebring, so fifth has to count as a disappointment.

In GT Le Mans (GTLM), the victory almost went to the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia of Pierre Kaffer and Giancarlo Fisichella. It was especially impressive since Fisichella, in a rare mistake, brushed the tire wall Friday at the end of a practice session, damaging the Ferrari’s left side.

The team managed to repair the car well enough for Fisichella qualify the car third less than 30 minutes later, and obviously fixed it even more comprehensively before the race, as it took the lead a hundred yards past the green flag from polesitter Bill Auberlen in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL Z4 GTLM and the second-place car, the No. 24 team BMW driven by John Edwards.

With just over 12 minutes left, though, the No. 25 BMW, driven by Dirk Werner, passed the No. 62 Ferrari with Pierre Kaffer at the wheel. Kaffer’s tires and brakes appeared to wear to the point where the Ferrari’s lap times were slowing substantially.

Meanwhile, Lucas Luhr, driving the No. 24 BMW, was charging into third place when he missed a turn, dropping several positions to fifth in class. Third was the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia, who won both of the first two races this season.

This was the second win in three years for Auberlen, 46, a Redondo Beach, California resident who attended the first Grand Prix of Long Beach – when he was six years old. It was the first TUDOR Championship win for BMW, which Auberlen said, “has been going through a bit of a dry spell, and I think that’s come to an end." His car had fallen back to seventh, and to rally back for the win “was amazing."

The race was surprisingly incident-free, given the tight quarters. On the first lap, the only major event had the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR GTLM car driven by Richard Lietz squeezed into the wall by the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R GTLM driven by Oliver Gavin, requiring major work to the Porsche’s right front wheel unit. The No. 4 finished 14th overall.

It essentially took the No. 912 out of contention, and it finished 16th of the 17 entries. Last place was unfortunately claimed by the No. 0 Claro/TracFone DeltaWing, which was making its street course debut, as the car has only raced before on larger, wider road courses. The DeltaWing retired less than a third of the way through the race with transmission issues.

The Long Beach race will air Sunday on FOX Sports 1 from 4 to 6 p.m. ET.

Next up: The two-hour and 40-minute Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix Presented by Mazda at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca May 2-3 featuring all four TUDOR Championship classes.

Results

COP CCP CLASS CAR DRIVERS CAR TIRE LAPS BEHIND GAP
1 1 P 10 R TAYLOR J TAYLOR CHEVROLET CORVETTE DP C 78 –.— –.—
2 2 P 01 HAND PRUETT FORD ECOBOOST RILEY DP C 78 3.300 3.300
3 3 P 90 WESTBROOK VALIANTE CHEVROLET CORVETTE DP C 78 18.242 14.942
4 4 P 31 CURRAN CAMERON CHEVROLET CORVETTE DP C 78 21.864 3.622
5 5 P 5 BARBOSA FITTIPALDI CHEVROLET CORVETTE DP C 78 50.468 28.604
6 6 P 60 PEW NEGRI HONDA HPD LIGIER JS P2 C 76 2 LAPS 2 LAPS
7 1 GTLM 25 AUBERLEN WERNER BMW Z4 GTE M 76 2 LAPS 33.202
8 2 GTLM 62 KAFFER FISICHELLA FERRARI F458 ITALIA M 76 2 LAPS 2.911
9 3 GTLM 3 MAGNUSSEN GARCIA CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R M 75 3 LAPS 1 LAP
10 4 GTLM 911 PILET MAKOWIECKI PORSCHE 911 RSR M 75 3 LAPS 0.202
11 5 GTLM 24 J EDWARDS LUHR BMW Z4 GTE M 75 3 LAPS 18.943
12 6 GTLM 17 SELLERS HENZLER PORSCHE 911 RSR F 75 3 LAPS 7.414
13 7 P 07 T LONG J MILLER MAZDA PROTOTYPE C 75 3 LAPS 49.350
14 7 GTLM 4 GAVIN MILNER CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R M 74 4 LAPS 1 LAP
15 8 P 70 NUNEZ BOMARITO MAZDA PROTOTYPE C 74 4 LAPS 1:12.834
16 – GTLM 912 LIETZ BERGMEISTER PORSCHE 911 RSR M 60 18 LAPS –:—
17 9 P 0 ROJAS LEGGE DELTAWING DWC13 C 20 58 LAPS 40 LAPS