Taylors supreme in Detroit

From the start of the race, Christian Fittipaldi moved the polesitting Action Express Racing Corvette DP into the lead but behind him, Ricky Taylor made a decisive move on front row starter Marc Goossens to grab second in the WTR Corvette.

This would prove to be a huge mercy on lap 10, when Goossens brushed the Turn 7 tire barriers, ripped off the rear wing of the VisitFlorida.com machine, and at the next turn, lacking rear downforce, he slid into the tirewall. He bounced off and into the path of the closely following second Action Express car driven by Eric Curran. The VisitFlorida #90 was out on the spot. The #31 AXR car was repaired and later rejoined the field to gain points and would be classified sixth in class.

Fittipaldi held onto the lead after the race restarted and handed over to Joao Barbosa still leading while the field was under yellow for a stopped PC car.

However, the safety car had picked up the GT Daytona leaders, and so when the race restarted at half-distance, the Prototype cars were surrounded by GTD and Prototype Challenge cars. One hesitation by Barbosa saw the newly installed Jordan Taylor duck around him and grab the lead in class, and put three cars and 2.7sec between himself and the AXR #5 by the time the yellow flew again just a couple minutes later as another PC car ate concrete.

With 34mins to go when the green flew again, there were no cars between them, but still Taylor pulled away from Barbosa to the tune of 1sec per lap until… yeah, you guessed it. A yellow for a wounded PC car.

This time on the restart, Barbosa hung close and over the stint closed up on the #10 WTR Corvette but Jordan was particularly adept at making late passes on GTD cars to always have a lapped machine as rearward protection. He crossed the line 1.7sec ahead.

Third in class went to Jonathan Bomarito and Tristan Nunez in the #55 Mazda Prototype after a lonely drive, always clear of the Michael Shank Racing Ligier-Honda piloted by Katherine Legge and Ozz Negri, which had a long pitstop to repair its right-rear suspension.

Thus the second Mazda Prototype took fourth, despite the Joel Miller/Tom Long-driven machine incurring a penalty stop for overboosting caused by the car bouncing in the air over the bumps.

Negri salvaged fifth for Shank, albeit three laps down.

In Prototype Challenge, Renger van der Zande and Alex Popow scored an excellent victory for Starworks, as van der Zande hunted down the leading CORE autosport car of Jon Bennett and Colin Braun in the late stages. Braun initially responded well to the pressure and started pulling away but with 5mins to go spun the lead away. This allowed van der Zande the honor of not only winning the class but also taking third place overall.

Robert Alon/Tom Kimber-Smith drove the class polesitting car to third for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, with Kyle Marcelli/James French fourth for Performance Tech Motorsports and Johnny Mowlem/Tomy Drissi fifth in the BAR1 car.

GT Daytona produced great racing as usual, and Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating drove to a superb victory in the Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper. Keating’s competence in the early stint and a flawless pitstop/driver exchange that saw the Viper go from fourth into the lead, were the foundations of the win.

Thereafter Bleekemolen was able to stay just out of reach of the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 driven by Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Lindsey. Behind them, the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 of Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan pressured the Porsche, but then fell away to consolidate third place.

Mario Farnbacher and Alex Riberas finished fourth in the Alex Job Racing Porsche, with Andrew Davis/Robin Liddell fifth in the Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8. Spencer Pumpelly and Corey Lewis were sixth in the Lamborghini Huracan of Change Racing.

The polesitting Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow led the first stint but a bobble on a bump at Turn 1 on a restart dropped the Huracan down to sixth. It would finish eighth.