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•Second straight win for Corvette DP in TUDOR Championship
•Westbrook, Valiante third overall in VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP
•Chevrolet leads in Prototype, GTLM Manufacturer points after three rounds
LONG BEACH, Calif. (April 18, 2015) – It was a good day Saturday at Long Beach for Chevrolet and the Corvette Racing programs. Ricky Taylor and Jordan Taylor were overall winners in the Tequila Patrón Sports Car Showcase in the third round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette Daytona Prototype won for the first time this season and moved Chevrolet into the lead of the TUDOR Championship’s Prototype Engine Manufacturer standings.
“The Wayne Taylor Racing team had a strong performance at Long Beach,” said Jim Campbell, Chevrolet U.S. Vice President – Truck Strategy, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “Ricky Taylor clinched the pole on Friday with a quick lap after cooling his tires. Then Jordan, Ricky and the No. 10 Corvette DP crew combined two great stints and quick pit stops to win the race.”
Campbell added: “The Corvette Corral at Long Beach was full. It’s great to see so many Corvette owners at the race track. We appreciate their support of Corvette Racing.”
It was a solid points day in both classes for Chevy and Corvette. Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen raced their way to a third-place GT Le Mans (GTLM) finish in Corvette Racing’s No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. The 2014 Long Beach class winners added Saturday’s podium result to their victories at Daytona and Sebring to open the season.
Ricky Taylor started from pole position and led the first 37 laps before he pitted 48 minutes in for the team’s only stop. Jordan Taylor rejoined in fifth but put in two strong laps while the rest of the Prototype field cycled through their stops to move up to second place. Another lap later, Taylor dove to the inside of Joey Hand’s prototype – on its second lap out of the pitlane – and made the move stick.
Taylor used late-race GTLM traffic to build a comfortable gap in the closing moments and won by 3.3 seconds. It was the first victory for the Konica Minolta Corvette DP since Petit Le Mans to close the 2014 season.
VisitFlorida.com Racing gave Team Chevy two spots on the overall podium with a third-place finish for Michael Valiante and Richard Westbrook in their No. 90 Corvette DP. It marked the pairing’s third consecutive podium on the season.
Garcia and Magnussen maintained the GTLM championship lead with their showing Saturday. Magnussen held steady in fourth during his stint, and a quick stop plus driver change to Garcia at the 44-minute mark allowed the Corvette C7.R to leapfrog the third-place car. Garcia dropped back to fourth in the first part of his stint before taking advantage of a miscue by the second-place car to move into podium position.
Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner finished seventh in GTLM with the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. An opening-lap incident with a fellow GTLM competitor shuffled Gavin back from fifth to eighth at the start. An early stop for a punctured tire didn’t help matters for the 2012 Long Beach GT class winners.
Corvette Racing and the Corvette Daytona Prototypes move on to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix. The fourth round of the TUDOR Championship is scheduled for 4:05 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 3.
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