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INDIANAPOLIS (July 26, 2013) – With a hard-fought second place finish in today’s Brickyard Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R drivers Robin Liddell and John Edwards secured the 2013 North American Endurance Championship in the Rolex Sports Car Series Grand Touring (GT) class.
With wins or podium finishes in five of the last six GRAND-AM Rolex races, the team sits second in both GT team and driver standings after eight of the 12 races completed on the 2013 schedule.
Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty brought the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette Daytona Prototype (DP) to the checkered flag in third position. It is the fourth podium finish for the pair, and moved the team to third in the Rolex DP team standings, and Gurney and Fogarty to second in the driver standings.
“Chevrolet got two hard fought podium finishes today with the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R finishing second to claim the GT North American Endurance Championship,” said Jim Lutz, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series. “The team has had a strong season with wins or podium finishes in five of the last six races. The third place finish for the No. 99 GAINSCO Corvette DP helped continue Chevrolet’s lead in the DP Manufacturers’ championship standings. Now we head to Road America as the championship battle continues.”
After starting on the pole, the No. 10 Velocity Worldwide Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP driven by Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli was credited with leading a total of 34 of the 107 laps in the three-hour race. On-track contact resulted in an off-track excursion for Angelelli while leading that ultimately lead to the 15th in-class finishing position. The team dropped from leading the points to fourth in the standings with four races remaining.
In the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge the No. 01 CKS Autosport Camaro GS.R, piloted by Lawson Aschenbach in the first stint, moved his way through the field from the 12th starting position to reach as high as second on the leaderboard. Midway through the 2.5-hour contest Eric Curran took over driving duties and fought handling issues to the completion of the race and was scored seventh at the finish. The No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GS.R driven by Matt Bell and Jon Edwards experienced a tire failure late in the event relegating the duo to a 20th place in class finish.
Next on the schedule for both the Rolex Series and the Continental Tire Challenge will be the VisitFlorida.com Sports Car 250 and the Road America 200 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI on August 8-10, 2013.
POST RACE DRIVER QUOTES:
JOHN EDWARDS, NO. 57 STEVENSON MOTORSPORTS CAMARO GT.R – FINISHED SECOND
ON WINNING THE NORTH AMERICAN ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP: “To be honest we did incorrect math during the race so I was told we lost it (North American Endurance Championship) to AIM, but I guess found out when we hit pit lane that we won. I got out of the car and still wasn’t even sure. Pretty excited about it because we really didn’t have a good Daytona, but then we won Watkins Glen and led at the three hour mark and then we finished second here. We obviously did what we had to do after a poor finish at Daytona. Really excited for the team and especially for John (Stevenson) he will get an extra $50,000 for a bonus. It helps alleviate the gearbox cost from yesterday.”
ON HIS RACE: “Well it was a bit tough we lost a lot of time in practice so we didn’t have very much time to set the car up and we did the best we could. It was fairly good on new tires in qualifying, but as the tires went off the car got a little sloppy and it was a little tough to drive. I was pretty happy that the race went green towards the end because I think if we had been in a mix of Porsches and had to be running off line then we might have lost some spots. I was happy for it to run green at the end and came away with the North American Endurance Championship so it’s a good day.”
ROBIN LIDDELL, NO. 57 STEVENSON MOTORSPORTS CAMARO GT.R – FINISHED SECOND
ON HIS RACE: “Quite happy with second place really, I mean we had a pretty poor start to the weekend. We lost most of the practice session on Thursday. The whole first session we lost due to a gear box problem. So, to recover from that, I only had six laps in the car before qualifying. Qualified second and finished second, we are actually pretty happy with that. We are very happy to win the North American Endurance three race deal. We are still focused on the longer game and the championship, but that is a nice bonus. Of any of those cars to finish ahead of us it wasn’t too bad with the No. 61 ahead. The guys did a great job in the pits. We jumped ahead of the Porches taking tires at that last stop is what hurt us to the No. 61 car, they didn’t take tires and they basically gained 10 seconds on us and that is where they finished so. Whether with hindsight we should have done that different who knows, but I don’t think we really had a car that was quick enough to win today.”
JON FOGARTY, NO. 99 GAINSCO/BOB STALLINGS RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED THIRD
ON HIS RACE: “We felt like we didn’t have the most competitive car today, but we ran a really smart race. Not a mark on the car and just kept our nose clean and kept our heads down. Smart strategy by the No. 99 team and put the Chevrolet up on the podium, which we are happy about. We will hopefully do a little better in the next one and move forward in the championship.”
ALEX GURNEY, NO. 99 GAINSCO/BOB STALLINGS RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED THIRD
ON HIS RACE: “We went a little bit off sequence from the other guys so at the end I was really struggling with tires, but I think we ran a strong race. We had good strategy and I think third was about as good as we were going to get today. The BMW’s are very strong so we will see what we can do at Elkhart.”
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