TOOELE, Utah — The Riley factory team of drivers Jim Mathews, Marc Goosens and Ryan Hunter-Reay posted the team’s first victory in Saturday’s Sunchaser 1000, the season finale for the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series at Miller Motorsports Park.
However, the team’s winning performance was overshadowed by the exciting conclusion to the Daytona Prototype championship battle which saw the Gainsco Pontiac of Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney, who got co-driving help from Jimmy Vasser at Miller, claim the title.
With Pontiac power under the hood, the winning trio shared the podium with fellow Pontiac racers Tomas Enge, Kris Szekeres and Ryan Dalziel, who brought their SAMAX Riley home second.
The Krohn Racing team of Colin Braun and Nic Jonsson finished third.
Paul Edwards, Kelly Collins and Andy Pilgrim utterly dominated the GT category from start to finish in the Banner Racing Pontiac GXP R after qualifying on the pole by more than a second over the rest of the production car field.
But what made the Sunchaser 1000 one of the most memorable events in Grand Am’s relatively short history were the championship battles in both categories.
Less than five points separated the duo of Fogarty and Gurney from Ganassi TELMEX Lexus Riley driver Scott Pruett and Wayne Taylor Racing driver Max Angelelli entering the finale. As for the GT contest, Andy Lally and R.J. Valentine led a two-car Porsche parade in their TRG 911 GT3 over Dirk Werner in the similar Farnbacher-Loles GT3.
The GT contest was decided early when Lally was forced out with a blown engine, while Werner, with the help of Bryce Miller and Wolf Henzler, finished third behind the Pontiac and their sister Farnbacher-Loles entry of Leh Keen, Ian Baas and Dominik Farnbacher.
The Daytona Prototype arena was more complicated. For the first three quarters of the race, all three took turns in the lead as they essentially ran in close formation, Angelelli partnered by Jan Magnussen, and Pruett by Memo Rojas and Salvador Duran, the man with whom he shared the top honors in the Rolex 24.
Pruett, notoriously hard to pass, was clearly displaying his mastery of keeping the lead over an increasingly frustrated Fogarty, when the latter pushed his car’s nose inside of Pruett’s as they went for the same left hand corner. Pruett attempted to squeeze Fogarty, who was not quite fully alongside, and was bumped in the left rear for his troubles by Fogarty’s right front wheel.
Both were forced into the pits. However, while the Gainsco Riley was able to exit the pits with Gurney aboard relatively intact except for a slightly mis-aligned front end, Pruett had badly damaged his car’s bodywork when his left-rear tire flew apart, putting him well behind.
Angelelli, who had inherited the lead, ran over the debris from Pruett’s car, and destroyed his right-rear tire, causing not only similar bodywork damage, but also cutting an oil line in the process. This left the car ablaze as it rolled to a stop at the entrance to pit lane, ending Angelelli’s title chances.
Pruett, however, was not done, as the full-course yellow that resulted from the SunTrust entry’s unfortunate retirement allowed Pruett under the “lucky dog” rule, as the first lapped car running, to move to the tail of the lead circuit.
On the restart, Michael Valiante, co-driving with Dana Cameron in Ganassi’s second Lexus Riley passed Gurney and proceeded to hold him up for a large portion of the remaining time in the event.
This allowed Pruett to move back up on Gurney’s tail. And, with the minutes and laps winding down, Pruett bumped his way past. Pruett then pushed his way around Shane Lewis, a move which if Pruett had made it stick, would have given him the title by two points.
But, courtesy of a ruling by the officials that Pruett could have avoided contact with Gurney, Pruett was forced to come in for a stop-and-go penalty, handing Fogarty and Gurney the championship
Afterward, Pruett made it very clear that he thought the penalty was totally unnecessary and had little to say other than, “Stupid people, do stupid things.”
Gurney, as one might expect, was on the opposite, emotional side, saying, “I’m still coming down from it all, and trying to take it all in. We broke a lot of records this year, and I think we deserved this championship.”
Fogarty, who twice won Formula Atlantic titles, described the race and its outcome as “the most difficult win of my professional career.”