MEXICO CITY, Mexico — It’s hard to keep good racers in check. It’s even harder to do so when they’ve won as frequently as Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas have.
Yet, Saturday as the two Chip Ganassi drivers were trying for their third-straight Grand American Rolex victory, Marc Goossens and Jim Mathews pushed their Riley-Mathews Pontiac across the line a few feet ahead of the similar Lexus-powered Telmex entry of Pruett and Rojas
Making things even more interesting was the fact that the third member of this nose-to-tail train was the new Krohn Racing Pontiac Lola, a car still in the early stages of development, of Nic Jonsson and Ricardo Zonta.
Coming home fourth, a relatively distant several more seconds in arrears was the Gainsco Pontiac Riley of reigning Rolex titlists Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney.
It was, in fact, somewhat of a throwback to the earlier days of the Rolex tour when “bumping” and “grinding” were a normal part of the racing “routine.”
And, it paid off in what was for the fans an entertaining race. However, that entertainment came at a price in broken equipment and escalated tempers — facts that only highlighted the tight Rolex spring schedule, which will see the series back in action this weekend at Virginia Int’l Raceway.
The unwanted action started early and stayed late, and included a frontstretch bumping match between Rojas, who was leading at the time, and Fogarty, who was trying to take the position away. Although no penalties resulted, Fogarty was less than pleased, while Rojas merely shrugged the matter off.
Even so, the most serious incident of the day involved the BMW Riley of Matt Plumb and the SunTrust Pontiac Dallara of Max Angelelli. The two got together in the tight right hander leading on to the frontstretch. For whatever reason, the left front of Plumb’s Riley tapped the right rear of Angelelli, sending both hard into the guardrail, and leaving the SunTrust entry with an almost completely wrecked front end.
The privately entered Stevenson Motorsports Pontiac GXP-R of Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis surprised everyone, leading the GT division across the line over the similar Banner Racing GXP-R of Paul Edwards and Kelly Collins. The Franbacher-Loles Porsche 911 GT3 coupe of Pierre Kaffer and Dirk Werner was third.