DAYTONA, FL – In what has been widely hailed as the most talented roster of drivers ever to compete in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, a trio of wily sportscar veterans stole the thunder.
Max Angelelli, Wayne Taylor and Emmanuel Collard earned a place in sportscar racing history by not only triumphing in the face of a deeply talented roster of drivers but by winning what was arguably the most competitive Rolex 24 at Daytona in the race’s 43 year history.
“Actually, I bought all the catalog of Rolex, each one of them, but I never bought this one,” joked Angelelli about the Rolex watch each winner receives. “This is the one I wanted to win. It's been long, but I made it, it's finally here. Now, I'm going to add this to my collection, finally, on top.”
The race featured an amazing 43 lead changes between eight separate teams and 16 different drivers. Angelelli, Taylor and Collard themselves led 282 laps out of the 710 laps the SunTrust Racing Pontiac-Riley they were sharing completed.
Despite leading the most laps Angelelli, Taylor and Collard found themselves playing catch up after an incident with a back-marker in the 16th hour cost the team three laps while bodywork damaged incurred in the shunt was repaired.
The contact, and the subsequent visit to the pits, allowed the Howard Boss Motorsports Pontiac-Crawford of NASCAR star Tony Stewart and sportscar stars Andy Wallace and Jan Lammers to take the lead.
By the 19th hour, the SunTrust Racing car made it back on to the lead lap setting the stage for an epic battle between them and the Howard Boss Motorsports car. Over the next two hours the teams swapped the lead several times only to have any chance of a close finish dashed when the Howard Boss Motorsports car encountered gearbox problems sending it sputtering back to the pits for repairs.
With the Howard Boss Motorsports car out of contention, the next closest challenger to the SunTrust Racing car was the sister Howard Boss Motorsports car of NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson and sports car aces Butch Leitzinger and Elliott Forbes-Robinson, although they were 11 laps behind.
By the 22nd hour all the SunTrust Racing team had to do was nurse the car home while their opponents made a mad dash to the finish, hoping the SunTrust car would hit trouble.
“I could feel the difference from last year to this year as far as intensity and pace,” observed Tony Stewart. “Everybody seemed to be flat out and everybody was running a pretty strong pace all day. It was fun and it made for a fun race. You didn't' feel like you were out just riding around. You were giving it 98 or 99 per cent the whole time.”
Ultimately Angelelli, Taylor and Collard steered clear of incident winning their second sportscar race together at Daytona in a row after triumphing in a three-hour race at the end of last season.
For Taylor, a previous winner of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, this year’s victory was made all the more sweet as he not only drives, but also owns, the SunTrust racing team.
“I think to win this race for the second time is certainly the highlight of my career,” Taylor said. “I think when I won my first Rolex 24 in 1996, I said to everybody that I got more attention than winning the World Sports Car championship or winning races all over the place. That was truly the greatest. It was a great event to win, the win lasted for a year, and this one is even better.” Adding, “the standard of the competition was so much higher. There were 15 cars that could have won this race on pure speed, not on retirements and so on. So this was really a good one to win. Especially being my home town, and SunTrust's home base, it couldn't be better.”
Unfortunately, the Canadians competing in the Daytona Prototype class were not so successful. However, the GT class was a different story.
In GT, the Farnbacher Racing USA Porsche GT3 of Wolf Henzler, Shawn Price, Pierre Erhet and Dominik Farnbacher took home the class spoils finishing 10th overall with the TRG Porsche GT3 of Canadians Dave Lacey, Greg Wilkins, Mark Wilkins and David Shep finishing third in class, 12th overall. Their run was by far the best of the Canadian brigade that made their way to Daytona this year.
Canadian driver coach Ross Bentley brought some of his pupils along and wound up finishing seventh in the GT class, 17th overall.
Scott Maxwell, in the Canadian-run Multimatic Daytona Prototype team, finished 27th overall sharing the car with NASCAR stars Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle.
Jean Francois Dumoulin drove a Porsche GT3 prepared by TPC Racing finishing 36th overall.
Canadian Champcar aspirant Michael Valiante finished in 42nd place overall after a troubled run, as a result of mechanical woes, with the new Ten motorsports Daytona Prototype team.
Paul Tracy, sharing Bell Motorsports Doran with last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona winners Terry Borcheller and ex-Champcar driver Christian Fittipaldi, finished 49th overall after encountering irreparable mechanical dramas overnight.
Other notables included Actor Paul Newman who, sharing a Daytona Prototype with Champcar champions Sebastian Bourdais and Christiano Da Matta, finished 51st overall after off-track excursions from each driver.
Despite many of the notable entrants finding themselves out of contention by halfway through the race officials can only be ecstatic with the field that turned out for the 43rd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona. From a humble six entries in the inaugural 24 hours run to Daytona Prototype rules in 2003 to the 29 entrants that contested this year's class, the Daytona Prototypes have truly come of age.
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