BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Forget the old parameters. Sunday was the day of the young bucks, as Alex Gurney, the son of legendary Dan Gurney, and teenager Colin Braun put on a show for the crowd that came to watch the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototypes wage war over the unforgiving 2.3-mile Barber Motorsports Park course on a 95-degree afternoon with humidity to match.
Gurney and his partner, Jon Fogarty, who got out of the Gainsco Pontiac-Riley, were looking for their fifth victory of the year and an opportunity to move closer to point-leader Scott Pruett, who with Luis Diaz occupied the fifth grid position in the Chip Ganassi-owned Telmex Lexus-Riley. Also looking to try and get back in the point hunt was Braun, who this weekend had Nic Jonsson rather than Max Papis as his partner in Krohn Racing’s Pontiac- Riley.
The question was who was the hungrier, Braun or Gurney? For the better part of an hour, the two raced in lock step just yards apart, with Gurney out front and Braun taking up the rear while seeking a way by. In the end it came down to a question of who would make the first mistake. But neither did, Braun being forced to settle for second.
Afterwards, Gurney had nothing but praise for his 18-year-old rival, characterizing Braun as “both fast and smooth.”
The Krohn driver, on the other hand, said he kept looking for a way by Gurney, but that he left him “no openings to get the job done.” So furious was the duel between the two that they simply left the rest of the field behind, a fact clearly evident as they pulled away from the third-place SunTrust Pontiac-Riley of Max Angelelli, who was sharing the car with Memo Gidley, at the rate of one and half to two seconds a lap following a third and final full-course caution of the day.
Angelelli was under intense pressure from David Donohue in the Red Bull-backed Brumos Porsche-Riley that Darren Law had started. So hard did Angelelli work to keep that “show” position that he had to be lifted from his prototype after taking the checkered flag ahead of Donohue and transported by ambulance to a local hospital for heat exhaustion. Later reports indicated that Angelelli would not suffer permanent effects, although one can only wonder about his enthusiasm for racing again at Barber in July.
Clearly Pruett and Diaz would have liked to have had a better afternoon, the two crossing the finish in fifth after a race in which they seemed unable to make any real gains on their opposition. Even so, Pruett came away in the lead for yet another Rolex title, an advantage that with just three DP rounds remaining will be hard to overcome.
Meanwhile, in Saturday’s two-and-a-half-hour GT show, it was all Kelly Collins and Paul Edwards in the Banner Motorsports Pontiac GXP-R, the pair starting on the pole and finishing with their first Rolex GT triumph of the year.