JC FRANCE RETURNS TO GRAND-AM

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – J.C. France is expected to officially return to Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series racing action at the June 6 Sahlen’s 6 Hours of The Glen.

“I’ll do a couple of HSR races before then to get back into the groove,” France said, adding that he’s already  participated in a couple of closed tests and likely will get in some practice time – but not race – prior to Saturday’s Grand-Am Rolex Series Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Va.

France was reinstated this week after following a strict rehabilitation program implemented and monitored by internationally recognized forensic toxicologist Dr. David L. Black, of Knoxville-based Aegis Sciences, who’s not only worked with NASCAR but Major League Baseball, World Wrestling Entertainment and other notable companies on drug-related testing and treatment programs.

On the eve of the series’ Oct. 9-10 race weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway – where he would’ve become the first driver to win a first-ever back-to-back award for that series’ best annual non-professional Daytona Prototype driver – he was was arrested, along with half-brother Russell Van Richmond, by Daytona Beach police for driving while under the influence as well as narcotics possession charges. Soon after, Grand-Am suspended the driver from further competition, abruptly ending his season and any hope of his collecting a second Jim Trueman Award (France with 2008 Trueman award, at right).

Adding salt to the wound, France two days later watched co-driver Joao Barbosa and substitute driver Hurley Haywood claim victory at the Grand Prix of Miami in what had been France’s 2009 season-long ride, the No. 59 Brumos Porsche-Riley. Ironically, it was at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2003 when France teamed with a then-active Haywood in the No. 59 Brumos Porsche-Fabcar to claim the Daytona Prototype’s first-ever overall race victory.

Though France was “thrilled” to see Barbosa, Haywood and the Brumos team win, “not being there cut me to my core,” he said.

“Being out of the car was tough, not just for that race but since then, too,” France said. “Sometimes it takes losing something to understand its importance. I was getting a little ragged and needed a good kick in the butt; I got it.”

DC

A PORSCHE 250 POSTSCRIPT OR TWO

 

Foremost is this correspondent’s humbled self, highly appreciative of the applause which supplanted an expected guffaw but also derailed another following line: “Mark Raffauf, you’re fired!” Of course, neither the delivered line nor dialogue lost had any official weight. Knowing those who attended, though, the “Raffauf” line was expected to elicit the actual applause line (if not hoots, etc.), even though we all dearly love Marcus. Yet, one later got the distinct impression Joe Sahlen wasn’t terribly impressed. No matter, Sahlen’s meats still are the best, anywhere, and some in the paddock sorely missed their usual presence, along with Buddy & Co. (Really, dinky motel muffins don’t get it; often not even offered with really cheap beds). Nevertheless: a very sincere “Thank You” to those who rapidly and repeatedly put hand to hand. Next time, though, just laugh, please. But yours truly was, well, truly humbled.

ON WITH THE, UM, RACE?

As of this being written Barber Motorsports Park has an anonymous “race” survey link that allows some venting, as needed. So have at it.

Mike Forest (No. 8 Corsa Car Care BMW-Riley) and Mark Wilkins (No. 61 Pacific Mobile Ford-Riley) were two of  2010’s previously unseen “Out-Front” drivers who showed some stuff at Barber Motorsports Park’s April 10, 2010, Porsche 250. Other than Ricky Taylor (more below), only David Donohue would lead the race other than those of Chip Ganassi Racing With Felix Sabates’ Blue Beast,  under the direction of Tim Keene (left).

It’s a heckuva thing to say but the last hour’s worth of Rolex Series racing in the Porsche 250 – save Memo Gidley’s nip, nip, nipping everyone’s heels (below right) but especially Ryan Dalziel’s – with 31 final laps under green was downright next-to-boring, even if six cars finished on the lead lap.

Yet, one has come to expect closer finishes in Grand-Am competition.

Given the date change and therefore a potentially different crowd on hand, one hoped to see exactly that for which the Rolex Series has become much noted: two and three cars engaged in a front-of-field mad scramble for victory.

As it was, Scott Pruett – with a most excellent earlier , 26-leading laps assist from co-driver Memo Rojas – kept the No. 01 TELMEX Dinan BMW-Riley Daytona Prototype at the front and won with a 6-second margin of victory over second place; which came in with a 10-second margin over third; which came in with a 2-second margin over a hustling Gidley, who led a three-car group (in which were David Donohue and Buddy Rice) having a two-second tighter margin than that separating first and second.

Lost mostly to all but the TV crowd (and due only to a camera’s focus being somewhat singular), the GT class provided a tight fight at the end, albeit a graying, crippled Sylvain Tremblay was doing all he could to beat a healthy, strapping young Jordan Taylor (left) to the line for second place in what the public – if not just an on-air SPEEDtv commentator – increasingly perceives as the “Mazda Class.”

Between some race-traffic shuffling, co-driver Todd Lamb getting in and climbing out, Jordan Taylor (it’s gonna be a long, long time before “Taylor” will again be seen herein without another name stuck in front of it) went from second to second. Sounds boring, but as much as Tremblay and his SpeedSource No. 70 Castrol Mazda RX-8 at race end was doing all he could to overtake Racers Edge Motorsports’ No. 30 3-Dimensional.com Mazda RX-8, Jordan Taylor was doing all he could to stay ahead. Emil Assentato (click on Emil’s link and you’ll see and hear Assentato narrate last year’s VIR qualifying run. Be prepared for some highly technical language, though, especially his “get the heck out of here”) and Jeff Segal earned their second win of the 2010 season in SpeedSource’s No. 69 FXDD Mazda RX-8.

CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

However, with Mazda’s having now won four of the last seven Rolex Series GT races, one just knew the axe was bound to fall, and did on Wednesday with Technical Bulletin No. 2010-04 which presented a number of changes to cars competing in the Rolex Series GT and Continental Tire classes.

Taking originally issued 2010 rules into account, for two GT-cars weight (the guys in the paddock like to say “ballast”) was: upped by 75 lb. for Mazda; upped 50 lb. for Corvettes having DP axles and IRS (at first, given the timing, one might’ve . . . actually probably did think “Infernal Revenue Service,” but in this case is an abbreviation for “Independent Rear Suspension” – rules-book writers preferring to keep yahoos like yours truly “in the dark” with buzzwords or, in this case, abbreviations without a cross-referencing glossary. However, rule writers do it differently).

Insofar as the Mazda RX-8s are concerned, the guys who must now climb even harder up the points ladder – if not  race finishes – include Patrick Dempsey Racing’s No. 40 (Joe Foster, Patrick Dempsey) and No. 41 (James Gué, and 2009 GT-class champ Leh Keen) RX-8s (right).

Sitting On Top Of The World (an excellent example of Eric Clapton’s early guitar skills being found therein) points-wise, if not weight-wise are the aforementioned (way up there, somewhere) Tremblay and that “new” guy, Jonathan Bomarito (below), who seems immensely capable of dispatching any track at which he qualifies. It’d be nice to see Bomarito and Jordan Taylor go one-on-one more frequently (no offense meant, Jonathon, for using “Jordan” – as mentioned elsewhere, there’s just too many “Taylor” surnames running round the paddock but only one “Bomarito”).

Yet, somehow sitting second in points (only five points behind Tremblay and Bomarito) and yet entirely unaffected (directly or overtly so) by the latest competition revision are Georgian Andrew Davis and Scotsman Robin Liddell (an eerie, almost twin-like resemblance taken into account, the Stevenson Motorsports No. 57 BryanMark Financial Camaro’s drivers’ nationalities were included so as to provide a hint used by motorsports writers in helping easily distinguish the two).

Having been given the green light to re-hire or employ new staff to cover the flood of Porsche’s returning to Grand-Am (given lost momentum; sometime between the fall of 2010 and the 2011 Rolex 24 At Daytona), PMNA (Porsche Motorsports North America) and Alwin Springer benefit from selling presumably larger-displacement engines, considering no hard reference to engine size exists in Grand-Am’s “GT Regulations 2010 Rule Book” (as of 12/17/2009)(give or take).

In the meantime, Dr. Jim Lowe (assuming an accord has been reached with Springer) has played his cards fairly well, having incurred little expense (that noise you hear would be Jim Pace and Lowe falling from respective chairs) from the Rolex 24 until now.

Despite teething problems of which they likely have overcome by now, the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche (drivers Craig Stanton, John Potter) has a firm grip on the Porsche-faithful standings. Though it’s probable Stanton and Potter will move up from their current 10^th-place in points, it’d take a major rollover from everyone above them to perhaps even reach the top-5.

ZOOM-ZOOMING ALONG

Yes, while seven Mazdas were in Barber’s Porsche 250’s field of 16 GT cars, they also battled six GMs (two Camaros and four Corvettes), one of which being driven by 2008 GT champ Paul Edwards (left), whose driving exhibition put on a whale of a show before three cars into one line equaled two off.

Edwards’ ride, Banner Racing’s No. 07 Las Vegas Bikefest/Mobil 1, was handed to him by co-driver and Motorcycle Great, Scott Russell (Motorcycle Hall of Fame) who put in his best Rolex Series qualifying run to date.

Still, maybe those who are inclined toward “Mazda” derision have forgotten, perhaps even overlooked decades of past sportscar fields of which fully half or more were regularly comprised of Porsches. Indeed, the IMSA of old was in large part disposed of reintroducing prototype racing in the U.S. due to the sheer weight of entry list ink alone expended on reproducing “Porsche” time and again.

Yet, what happened? Porsche comes back and, by the mid-80’s, had populated the field with its 962 – which wouldn’t have been built if not for the insistence of John Bishop and Mark Raffauf.

Assuredly, Porsche by that point had refined at least one page torn from Henry Ford II’s book on racing: flooding a given field with one particular nameplate provided a greater chance of claiming victory. Porsche’s notable refinement of “The World According To Henry; I’m Gonna Get You Enzo” was mostly in selling its race cars to others instead of itself solely picking up the race tab.

Yet, one cannot at the same time conveniently overlook Porsche’s repeatedly demonstrated reality: build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to that builder’s door.

That which Porsche did then is what Mazda is now doing. As demonstrated above, Porsche’s got enough muscle to reverse a trend politically or otherwise, the latter at this point being questionable inasmuch as it appears to have successfully invested aplenty in making others “The Bad Guys.”

FREIGHTTRAINS or lack thereof (other than Zoom-Zoom)

As the race wound down, deflated were various balloons of hope of those expecting all heck to break loose had only Ozz Negri’s (at far left with John Pew) No. 60 Crown Royal Ford-Riley DP somehow closed completely on Pruett’s No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley. (BTW: should the reader think the preceding unwieldy, try “Oswaldo Negri, Junior’s Michael Shank Racing No. 60 Crown Royal Extra Rare XR Roush Yates Engines Riley Technologies Mk XXII Daytona Prototype with John Pew”)

Negri and Pruett dicing at race end would’ve itself been worth the price of admission. Especially keeping in mind Mike Shank’s pre-race team lecture: “We aren’t going to take it anymore; get a fender, give a fender” (or something to that effect).

Translated: “We’re tired of being a Mr. Nice Guy having fast race cars but who gets creamed by others. If anything, we’re gonna be the creamers instead of the creamees and take ourselves out before anyone else gets the chance” (or something to that effect).

Well, okay, while conceding the above probably is open to interpretation, one also remembers a time when Negri wasn’t at all shy about putting a fender on anyone (ask Christian Fittipaldi). Then again, that was around the same time when Max Papis and Jan Magnussen played “Drill This Car” (poor Jan, it seems everyone drills him at one time or another) or when David Donohue’s doors (yep, plural) frequently flew open as he and Terry Borcheller duked it out at Phoenix. Or J.C. France (soon) and Chris Bingham tangled mano-a-mano en el Autódromos Hermanos Rodríguez del Cuidad México DF.

The English way of civilized racing – with leather gloves, flowing scarves and near-worthless but cute hats – is terribly overstated. Give me Cale, Donnie and Bobby throwing this and that in Turn-3 any day – as long as yours truly isn’t actually caught up in it, of course. They do it in hockey, football and even baseball for gosh sakes.

Which brings us back to the lack of “debris flags” (a misnomer in general context as applied to road racing) flying on this side of NASCAR’s fence, even though actually displaying such may be in a race promoters’ and spectators’ interest and even if they don’t know it. (Sound familiar? Hint: “national scale”)

It’s a given that the Pruett, Rojas and the Ganassi fan base were happy to see the TELMEX team win. It’s also a given that fans of fifteen other DPs weren’t happy and likely at one point, any point hoped for a “bunching of the field” for a final shootout.

It’s a “my guy” kind of thing but, nonetheless, if some sort of overt action gathered the field at the end it’d still put all who watched on seat edges – even the Chip Ganassi with Felix (de donde es José?) Sabates fans. In this case, had Pruett gone on to win (and who, other than Juan Pablo Montoya, might think he wouldn’t . . . okay, maybe Pew and Shank and Claudia Negri) then all would’ve been “right” with the universe. If Pruett hadn’t prevailed, then all still would’ve been right with the universe, except from the TELMEX fans’ perspective, of course. Yet, 15 is greater than 1 in most mathematics courses – and that’s the number which should’ve been ultimately served. (The Big Gorilla with his second Paul Reed Guitar, at right)

The single greatest danger to all (short of terrorists and, perhaps, those who trash Constitutional concepts) – from fans in the stands, to television ratings, to series participation and to a series itself – is a runaway points race so early in the season. Man, if one is going to hassle with plane changes in Hartsfield and sleeping in strange places having weird noises, then provide a reason for undertaking such. Boredom doesn’t count didley for anyone, save Henry David Thoreau.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM – OUT GO THE LIGHTS?

Enough said.

 

TURNING BACK THE CLOCK ONE DAY

Friday’s Barber Motorsports Park qualifying session stirred the same-oh, same-oh mix just a tad and announced the arrival of some newer characters. Like Ricky Taylor, some have been around and are entering a new phase of self-belief mixed with proper machinery. Others, Like Kasper Andersen, are just showing up. Some might say it’s a “changing of the guard,” but yours truly won’t be so cheap to at all use that cliché.

Surely you’ve read all about it: Ricky Taylor scored the Porsche 250 DP pole in record-setting fashion, then at race-start absolutely hauled buggy in his SunTrust No. 10 Ford-Dallara (below, right) though such was likely motivated as much by fear of the unknown as anything. Ricky Taylor recorded the race’s second-fastest DP lap, bettered only by SunTrust co-driver Max Angelelli.

Perhaps the more surprising part of Ricky Taylor’s 47 laps is that he didn’t commit an error of negatively impacting magnitude (with all due respect to SunTrust’s James Wells, though, that’s where the team’s good luck ended) because Angelelli took care of that when he did a banzai move (really, watch the wheels on the video, Max) on an already turning Ryan Dalziel and his No. 8 Corsa Car Care BMW Riley.

Unfortunately, the SunTrust car got the worst part of that deal. That Dalziel didn’t experience harm sufficient enough to keep he and co-driver Mike Forest (who is getting to be one darn good DP driver) and their Starworks BMW-Riley from the podium is probably more surprising.

In same qualifying session as that of Ricky Taylor’s, while in the McDonald’s No. 77 Ford-Doran, oops, Dallara, Dion Von Moltke pushed the limits once again – which is what racers are supposed to do, if one is to believe someone like Bill Riley, that is – and paid a relatively mild price for having done so. The car had only a race day warm-up lap in a test of a new front-end suspension courtesy of Von Moltke, but he and Gidley teamed for one of the best runs Doran Racing has had in awhile. Just after race start Von Moltke was “Taylored” (a verb, “to Taylor” is defined as: “An experienced racer, usually Darren Law, intentionally and firmly nudges a young upstart’s door, formerly Ricky Taylor, so as to advise the latter of an older, gray-haired racer’s presence, if not make ‘em pee their pants”; synonyms include, “check,” “bump” and “punt”).

Gidley’s understandably high on Von Moltke and the chemistry is good between the two. At some point this season the two will climb onto the podium, if not its top step. (On second thought: Gidley’s always “high” – on life, dummies. Or would that be Muscle Milk? Post-race, at the opposite end of the paddock from the team’s hauler a sweat-drenched Gidley climbed from the McDonald’s car. Gidley: “Man, that car’s hot! My cool suit didn’t work, my helmet’s blower stopped working and my water bottle ran out 15-minutes before race ended. Man, I need some liquids.” A journalist walking alongside just happens to have a bottle of water and offers it to Gidley. Gidley: “Nah, I don’t drink that stuff,” and didn’t. At that moment one was tempted to posit, “Okay, so you’re in the Gobi Desert . . .”)

A second Starworks car, with former NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and, before that, sportscar guy Bill  Lester (left) was teamed with Great Dane Kasper Andersen in the No. 7 Xtreme Karting/Flex Box BMW Riley. A late-Friday conversation with Andersen revealed he wasn’t all too sure about as yet “getting” the DP thing but it was clear Bill Lester is. First, he said he was. Second, he showed it Saturday with a couple of really slick passes in difficult places. “It’s taken me about two years longer than I would’ve liked or thought it would, but I’m finally getting the hang of it,” Lester said Thursday before the race.

 

BLAME GAME

In the end, blame it all on Raffauf for failing to throw a debris, um, caution flag to collect something from someplace or someone (hell, it could’ve been bubble gum from the Pirelli Girls for all I care). Had the flag been thrown, the field would’ve bunched, Ozz would’ve taken out Pruett and Max would’ve taken out three or four others and the Spirit of Daytona (at front, right) would’ve finished out front.

Later,

DC

PERFECTION

Driving the incline spanning Barber Motorsports Park’s fourth and fifth turns – the topography between which rises some 30 feet – Ricky Taylor’s No. 10 SunTrust Ford-Dallara each lap assumed a perfect angle for the 20-year-old to peer at the very top of Barber Motorsports Park’s towering, 10-story scoring pylon – giving the driver only one glimpse once each lap of the 2.3-mile, 17-turn race track.

Before Taylor began his cool-down laps he’d not paid any attention to the pylon’s numbers, instead finding and focusing on the groove that would best carry him quickly around a highly technical track that legendary motorcycle rider Scott Russell characterizes as “a long roller coaster ride that runs through a park” and still others just cuss.

Having to negotiate 15 turns and the roughly 90-seconds between each pass of the pylon, Taylor’s stomach had more than enough time to churn during his Dallara’s two cool-down laps, all the while wondering if the “10” – his 10 – atop the pylon might be replaced by one of 15 other Daytona Prototypes trying to gain the best position from which one can start a Barber race – up front.

“I was nervous,” Taylor admitted, “I thought someone would lay down a fast lap in the final few minutes.”

Taylor said his team via radio had straightaway signaled him when he put down the Friday qualifying session’s fastest lap but had grown largely quiet afterward. Ricky Taylor also knew the day’s fastest lap – an unofficial record fast lap at that – had earlier been claimed by Antonio Garcia in the Spirit of Daytona’s No. 90 Cayenne V8-Coyote.

With others taking the session’s checkered flag, Garcia was still using as much of the track as he dared, pushing his Coyote hard on what up to that point was his fastest lap. While rounding the track’s final turns the Spaniard bobbled just enough, limiting the throaty No. 90’s Porsche 8-cylinder to the outside pole for Saturday’s race.

It was over. The pylon wouldn’t change. A Ford-powered Dallara would sit on the Porsche 250’s Daytona Prototype pole and in the process became Ricky Taylor’s first in that class.

“Relieved,” said Wayne Taylor after son Ricky (together, below) collected the pole, “Just relieved.”

  “It’s been a tremendous weight for Ricky to carry, stepping up this year for a full season on the SunTrust team. We all knew he had the ability to drive well and now he’s demonstrated it.”

Little wonder, that weight, especially in light of Ricky Taylor’s Grand-Am biography (written by others) that in part reads: “Taylor begins the 2010 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series season with his father-owned SunTrust Racing . . .”

Immediately in the Daytona Prototype championship hunt after joining the series in 2004, SunTrust driving-duo Wayne Taylor and Max Angelelli would a year later claim the 2005 Rolex 24 At Daytona (with an assist from third-driver Emmanuel Collard) and drove on to a commanding win of that season’s DP championship (five wins, 12 top-five and ten top-10 finishes among the 28 drivers and 16 race teams fully competing for the 2005 DP championship, that year squaring off against a total of 38 different DP teams).

Fast forward a few years and, in the wake of Wayne Taylor all but totally retiring from driving, Angelelli in the SunTrust car separately paired with (some would say, “chopped through”) two other full-season co-drivers (actually, including part-timers, four in all: Jan Magnussen, Memo Gidley, Michael Valiante, Brian Frisselle.

Barely a day before 2010 season testing began in earnest at Daytona International Speedway’s early January “Roar Before The 24,” Ricky Taylor found himself driving for one of the Grand-Am Rolex Series’ premier teams: SunTrust Racing.

Working for the old man, indeed!

About six years ago, after bringing two fairly disinterested and relatively quickly bored offspring to a Daytona International Speedway test, Wayne Taylor was all but resigned to the possibility that sons Ricky and Jordan wouldn’t become involved in the family business.

About the time Wayne Taylor explained a hands-off policy with regard to forcing his sons’ participation in racing – maintaining “heart” and not outside force fuels the best racers – he ironically lamented, “They’ve showed interest in just about everything but racing.”

Shortly after, as if by spontaneous combustion, Ricky and Jordan’s motorsport passion suddenly, simultaneously and seriously ignited.

Undertaking a carefully crafted but nonetheless fast track that took the pair through Karting and into various Skip Barber racing programs, Ricky and Jordan Taylor pictured at left)  soon startled just about all whom they first encountered on the track, displaying skills clearly beyond their years.

By 2006, Ricky claimed a Skip Barber Eastern Series Championship (three poles, six wins and 12 podium finishes), while Jordan in 2007 scored a Skip Barber Eastern Championship (four poles, four wins and 10 podiums). That same year in a Skip Barber National Championship run, Ricky scored five poles, two wins and five podiums on the way to a second-place overall finish.

(As an aside: it’s rare for a parent to recognize that while he or she may exhibit excellent given professional expertise, patiently and correctly teaching an offspring those same skills is an entirely different undertaking; “modeling,” however, being an entirely different subject and the practice of which Wayne Taylor clearly was capable.)

After tentatively here-and-there testing the Rolex Series’ waters in 2008 (helping the SunTrust team collect a fifth-place finish in that year’s Rolex 24), Ricky Taylor in 2009 contested the season’s 12 DP races in an eclectic variety of rides, mixing Dallara, Crawford and Riley chassis variously powered by Ford and Pontiac engines.

Many observers felt August’s Montreal 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was Ricky Taylor’s breakthrough race, wherein he was running third close to race end when he clearly yielded to Alex Gurney and his No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac-Riley. Deep into a championship fight at the end of which Gurney and co-driver Jon Fogarty would prevail, had he maintained position it would’ve been Ricky Taylor’s first Rolex Series podium.

“They (GAINSCO) were in a fight for the title,” Ricky Taylor later said, “We weren’t and there wasn’t a lot to be gained in us fighting for the position, potentially taking out two or more cars in the process.”

After the Montreal race ended and turning to a journalist, Wayne Taylor squeezed his forefinger to thumb and said, “This close; this close!”

On Friday, in just his third race weekend as a season-long member of the SunTrust Racing team, Ricky Taylor scored a pole on what is arguably among the more trying, if not technical tracks in North America.

Lapping the track in record fashion with a 1:19.624 lap at an average speed of 103.988 mph, Ricky Taylor ironically bested Michael Valiante’s 2008 BMP track-record 1:20.521/102.83, set while driving (what else?) the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac-Dallara.

“It’s actually the first pole I’ve won in years,” Ricky Taylor said while taking the congratulations of and some gentle ribbing from Memo Gidley, who co-drives Doran Racing’s No. 77 MacDonald’s/South Africa Airways Dallara-Ford with Dionne Von Moltke.

When Friday’s Daytona Prototype qualifying dust settled, Ricky Taylor returned to the SunTrust hauler’s front, sat next to co-driver Angelelli and with him poured over his session’s data entrails, seeking how he might’ve squeezed out yet another tenth, hundredth or thousandth-of-a-second, primarily because his top lap “wasn’t a perfect lap, by far,” he said.

Meanwhile on the track, driving the Racers Edge Motorsports’ No. 30 3-Dimensional.com/IDEMITSU Mazda RX-8 in  GT qualifying, “little” brother Jordan Taylor claimed the GT race’s outside pole - missing that classes’ inside pole by fewer than two-hundredths of one second.

“Now that would’ve been perfect, having them on pole,” Taylor later said, winking and then, with forefinger pressed to thumb, said, “This close; this close!”

Heck, one remembers when Wayne Taylor was “this close” to giving up on seeing either one of those Taylor youngins jumping into a race car.

Later,

DC

Post Script:

Starting from the pole for the first time in his 23-race Rolex Series career was an eye-opener for Ricky Taylor, who nevertheless put pet to metal and let ‘er roll when the racer took the green flag Saturday in the Porsche 250 at Birmingham’s Barber Motorsports Park.

“I’ve never been racing with those guys before up at the front and, now, I can see why they’re racing up there every weekend,” the second-youngest pole-winner in Rolex Series history said after climbing from his No. 10 SunTrust Ford-Riley.

At the field’s front unabatedly for 15 laps (and setting the race’s second-fastest lap in the process; 1:20.591, bested only by his co-driver’s later 1:20.483), the brain trust atop the SunTrust war wagon on Lap 16 called race-leader Taylor – that would be Ricky Taylor, not “Wayne” Taylor – into the pits in a strategic call prompted by Lap 13’s full-course yellow flag. Scooting back onto the track, a seventh-place Taylor rejoined the fray behind cars which for whatever reason chose to remain on the track or undertake only short stops, forgoing either tires or gas.

Between adept passing and seeing others fall from the pace with eventual pit stops, Taylor worked his way up to second place behind Memo Rojas’ No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley on Lap-47, where he stayed until both he and Rojas were running on all but gas fumes – Taylor having run nearly half of the race’s 108 total laps but more than half of the SunTrust’s 80 laps.

SunTrust Racing fell short of the race’s mark when Massimiliano “MaxAxe” Angelelli, who assumed driver duties in the car upon Taylor’s exit, tried a fast-closing, inside-line pass on the No. 8 Corsa Car Care BMW-Riley of eventual third-place finisher Ryan Dalziel (Mike Forest, co-driver) at the 2.3-mile track’s 180-degree Turn 5. Dalziel and Angelelli’s respective cars contacted, Angelelli getting the worst of it; suspension damage owing to the car’s 26^th-place (15^th-in-class) race finish.

“I knew it would come but I didn’t know where it’d come,” Ricky’s mother, Shelley, said of her eldest son’s first DP pole, which she didn’t witness.

Shelley was there for the race, though, catching a flight as soon as she heard the news. Unfortunately, like many Shelley will have to wait until at least the next race for Ricky’s first win.

In the meantime, Wayne Taylor’s got another problem on his hands: what to do with trusted friend, near-brother and longtime racing partner Max Angelelli after youngest-son Jordan Taylor collected a hard-earned GT-class second place, driving with Todd Lamb in the No. 30 3-Dimensional.com/IDEMITSU Mazda RX-8.

Of course, that potentially leads to everyone else someday having a problem with the Taylor and Taylor driving team.

STILL PENNILESS

 

Fielding two Daytona Prototypes for the season, Pompano, Florida’s Peter Baron finally is fully returning to racing after he found himself among those reportedly swindled by Henri Zogaib (booking mug, below right), who was arrested in February on fraud charges but has yet to face judgment day - in this world or the next.

Seeing his race-winning SAMAX Racing team in 2008 dismantled in an effort to repay creditors, Baron’s was a difficult, emotional roller-coaster ride back to the Rolex Series – at one point even driving a tow truck so as to make ends meet.

Finally seeing a little daylight as 2009 came to a close, in the off-season Baron formed Starworks Motorsport, acquired a couple of used Riley Daytona Prototypes, beat the bushes for sponsorship (Corsa Car Care and Xtreme Indoor Karting), put Dinan BMW power in the engine bays of each, hung Nos. 7 and 8 on ‘em and found drivers as needed for each – though running only a one-car effort in the Rolex 24

In Saturday’s Porsche 250 at Birmingham’s Barber Motorsports Park, former Camping World Truck Series driver Bill Lester (below at HMS) and 2004 Nordic Formula Renault champ Kasper Andersen of Silkeborg, Denmark, team in the No. 7 Xtreme BMW-Riley, while Ryan Dalziel and Mike Forest for their second race together have taken the wheel of the No. 8 Corsa BMW-Riley.

Benefitting from a winning effort in January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona, Scotsman Dalziel stands second in the Daytona Prototype driving championship hunt after starting his season in the No. 9 Action Express Racing Cayenne V8-Riley team, co-driving with Mike Rockenfeller and AER season-long regulars Terry Borcheller and Joao Barbosa.

“Though we were going racing in 2010, things for us nonetheless were a little unsettled for us when Gary Nelson asked Ryan (right) to drive the (No.) 9 car,” Baron said. “How could I not allow Ryan a chance to for sure run the Rolex 24? I just couldn’t do it. But I’m happy to have him back in the fold, now.”

Upon rejoining the team, Dalziel and Canadian-native Forest combined to finish a strong fifth in the Mar. 6 Grand Prix of Miami, surrendering fourth place in the race’s waning moments.

“It’s a move Ryan shouldn’t have made,” Baron said of a late-race restart that allowed GAINSCO Racing’s Alex Gurney and his No. 99 Chevrolet-Riley to punch through into a fourth-place finish. “Still, the man knows how to race and he only learns from his mistakes.”

In a kind of déjà vu all over again, the pair and their No. 8 Corsa Car Care BMW-Riley (at left at HMS) posted a fifth-best 1:21.021 (102.195 mph) in practice Thursday, trailing the practice’s leader, the guys at GAINSCO, by about one second over the 17-turn, 2.3-mile Barber Motorsports Park road course.

Acquiring the two used Riley DPs from different sources, Baron said it’s “been interesting” to see how others have customized the respective cars.

“You look at one and say, ‘Well, that’s kind of interesting,’ and then you look at something someone else did on the other and say, ‘Hmm, I wonder how well that worked’ and then set about changing both to where we want them,” Baron said.

Figuring the team’s two cars now are “about 60-percent” identical, Baron said such won’t keep the team from scoring a podium, which he feels will come no later than between now and the early June Sahlen’s 6 Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen international.

But still, “Everyone figures they need to be the same,” he said.

“If we need a part for one of cars to make them competitive, I’ll sacrifice a paycheck,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve actually drawn a (racing team) paycheck in two years.”

Just like a racer.

Later,

DC