HOMESTEAD, Fla. — In a two-and-three-quarter-hour event interrupted repeatedly by full-course cautions, Ganassi team drivers Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas scored their second-straight Grand American Rolex Series victory in the Gainsco Grand Prix of Miami Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The winners of January’s season-opening Rolex 24 brought their new Lexus-Riley across the line slightly more than one-and-a-half seconds in front of the Ruby Tuesday Porsche Crawford of Bill Auberlen and Joey Hand, while third went to Oswaldo Negri and Mark Patterson in their Ford-powered Riley. Completing the list of the top-five overall finishers was the Pontiac Riley of Mark Goossens and Jim Mathews in fourth, and the BMW Riley of Matt Plumb and Gene Sigal in fifth.
In all, no less than 15 cars completed the winning distance of 99 laps around the combined tight infield and oval portions of the Homestead Motorsport complex, an unusual circumstance of any such affair, and one made even more so because of the fact there were four different engine suppliers among the first five-finishing Daytona Prototypes.
Pruett, who recently celebrated his 48th birthday, said afterward that his car was “perfect,” praising the Mike Hull-led Ganassi crew for its efforts on a day that later saw Ganassi driver Scott Dixon snag the season-opening IRL Homestead affair.
In truth, though, much of the closeness was due to the fact that the green flag rarely waved for more than 10 laps at time, the cautions serving to keep things tight throughout.
If things were close in the prototype community, they were equally so among the production-based GT set where the Banner Racing Pontiac GXPR of Paul Edwards and Kelly Collins took the top honors over the TRG-entered Porsche 911 GT3 of Tim George, Jr. and Spencer Pompelly on an afternoon that saw the GM division’s car dominate the front of the GT standings with the sister Banner Racing GXPR of Jan Magnussen and Leighton Reese taking third in the category, narrowly missing a one-two performance.
The ever-quick Speedsource Mazda RX8 of Sylvain Tremblay and Nic Ham might have done better than their eventual fifth-place effort had they not encountered problems, taking the checkered flag behind the Farnbacher-Loles Porsche of Dominik Farnbacher and Dirk Werner.
Still, in the less than comfortable confines of Homestead, anything can happen, especially problems. For front-row starters that was a truism which became dramatically clear after a little more than 30 laps following an ongoing duel for first, when the pole-sitting Brumos Porsche of Darren Law and David Donohue spun going into the infield section. The out-of-control car struck the outside front-row starting SunTrust Pontiac Dallara of Max Angelelli and Michael Valiante, taking both out of the show on the spot.
Even so, the speed and the ability of the two cars to dominate up to that point only emphasized the fact that while Pruett and Rojas may sit on the crest of the Rolex points hill for the moment, the season for the Grand Am’s premier show remains wide open, not only in the DP category, but in GT as well.