Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas held on to their Daytona Prototype drivers’ points lead after finishing sixth in the 2 ¾ hour Grand-Am Rolex Series race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in their Ganassi Riley-BMW.
Their closest rival for the title, Starworks’ Ryan Dalziel, finished third in the Riley-Ford that he shared with Alex Tagliani. As a result, he closed in on Pruett and Rojas in points, but in post-race technical inspection the width of his car was found to be out of compliance. Any penalties will be announced later in the week.
The overall win went to the Corvette DP of Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook.
Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato clinched the GT class championship with a second-place finish in their Ferrari. Paul Dalla Lana, who was running second in points before the race, fell to third as he finished tenth in the Turner Motorsport M3 that he shared with Bill Auberlen and Billy Johnson. The GT win went to Dane Cameron and Wayne Nonnamaker in their Team Sahlen Mazda RX-8.
In contrast to the DP race, which ran with only two caution periods over the course of 2 ¾ hours, Saturday’s 2 ½ -hour Continental Challenge race was plagued by eleven cautions. The best finishing BMWs in the race were the second-place overall Grand Sport class Fall-Line M3 of Bryan Sellers and Mark Boden and the third place Street Tuner class BimmerWorld 328i of David Levine and Greg Liefooghe. John Edwards and Matt Bell won the race and the GS class in their Camaro, while Derek Whitis and Tom Long won the ST class in their Mazda MX-5.
The season finale for both the Rolex and CTSCC series will be run at Lime Rock on September 28-29.—Brian S. Morgan