Overbeek and Brown win at Laguna Seca

The Overbeek and Brown Acura

LAT for IMSA

It was a breakthrough win achieved at a breakneck pace, caution-free and milestone-marked. The team of Ed Brown and Johannes van Overbeek tamed a field of Prototypes, co-driving their No. 2 Tequila Patron HPD ARX-03b/Honda to victory in the Continental Tire Grand Prix of Monterey powered by Mazda on Sunday – the first victory for a P2 Prototype in the inaugural TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

This was significant – and fast, with the winners posting an average speed of 97.318 mph in the two-hour race on the 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course.

Brown and van Overbeek won the second of two races Sunday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, featuring the TUDOR Championship’s Prototype (P) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes.

Sunday's breakthrough win for the No. 2 came on the heels of an “adjustment of performance" made by IMSA that lessened horsepower capabilities for the Daytona Prototypes, which had won the season’s first three races.

Van Overbeek took the lead for good with 15 minutes remaining when he passed No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP driver Jordan Taylor in Turn 3. Taylor and his brother Ricky finished second; finishing third were Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett, in the No. 01 Telcel Ford EcoBoost/Riley.

That pass "was sort of inevitable," said Jordan Taylor, conceding that on this day and track, the No. 2 had too much car. "I mean, we came into this race knowing the P2s would be strong. We led a lot, but that was mostly due to strategy."

"This will probably soak in, in a week or so," said Brown, who started the car from the pole. "We’ve worked really hard. I felt really good coming out of qualifying yesterday knowing that I had the fastest guy on the track racing with me."

Added van Overbeek: "[Our next race at Detroit] Belle Isle will be much like [our previous one] in Long Beach (both street races) so it will suit the Daytona Prototypes more than us. They have a lot more torque. With every race, ESM Patron guys will show up prepared, work hard, and do the best job."

Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia

Richard Prince for Chevy Racing

In GT Le Mans, Corvette Racing followed up its win at Long Beach with a repeat trip to Victory Lane by co-drivers Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia. Bill Auberlen in No. 55 BMW Team RLL Z4 took over second place on the last lap by pushing past the No. 911 Porsche North America 911 RSR car driven by Nick Tandy.

Post-race review of late-race contact between the No. 55 and the No. 911 resulted in the No. 911 receiving a stop/plus 60-second penalty. That dropped the No. 911 to ninth in GTLM and moved the No. 62 Ferrari F458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella and Pierre Kaffer into third.

The headlining race involving the TUDOR Championship’s P and GTLM classes was preceded by a separate two-hour race for Prototype Challenge (PC) and GT Daytona (GTD) classes. In that one, Starworks Motorsport’s Renger van der Zande overcame an early-race incident by his co-driver Mirco Schultis to win easily – by 12.234 seconds over Sean Rayhall of 8Star Motorsports, who co-drove with Luis Diaz.

In GTD, the No. 45 Audi R8 of Spencer Pumpelly and Nelson Canache Jr. was the class of the field until midway through the last lap when the car ran out of fuel.

That paved the way for Dane Cameron’s No. 94 BMW Z4 to slip past and take the victory.

"Everything said we should have been good," said Pumpelly. "Now that we missed it by that little bit I’m kicking myself for every 31 (1-minute, 31 second lap) that I ran that could have been a 32, so I’m going to mull over that for a while."

Cameron, who co-drove with Markus Palttala, said he was at the top of the corkscrew on the final lap when he realized he could win.

"They were telling me to hurry up and I wasn’t sure how much I could hurry up any more," said Cameron. "I think everyone probably shouted and jumped up and down and hoped that his car wouldn’t pick-up enough to get himself back going."

Next up for the TUDOR Championship is the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on Saturday, May 31. The 100-minute race will feature the Prototype and GT Daytona classes.

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