Date: Jan. 23, 2014
Event: 52nd Rolex 24 At Daytona (Round 1 of 12)
Series: Prototype division of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship
Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway (3.56-mile, 12-turn superspeedway road course)
Pole Winner: Alex Gurney of Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing (1:38.270 at 130.416 mph)
Wayne Taylor Racing: 7th by Ricky Taylor (1:39.023 at 129.424 mph)
The No. 10 Velocity Worldwide Chevrolet Corvette Dallara Daytona Prototype of Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) will start this weekend’s Tudor United SportsCar Championship season-opening 52nd Rolex 24 At Daytona from the inside of the fourth row after qualifying Thursday afternoon at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
Ricky Taylor, who’s joined in the No. 10 Corvette with younger brother Jordan Taylor, Max “The Ax” Angelelli and his father and team owner Wayne Taylor in this weekend’s twice-around-the-clock endurance marathon, turned a fast qualifying lap of 1 minute, 39.023 seconds (129.424 mph) around the famed 3.56-mile, 12-turn superspeedway road circuit. It was good for seventh among 68 car-and-driver combinations set to take the green flag Saturday.
“It was OK,” said Ricky Taylor, who returned to the WTR team where he co-drove with Angelelli to seven wins and 10 pole positions from 2010 through 2012 before spending the 2013 season with the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette team. “We have a lot of things to improve. We didn’t get a lot of good laps in practice, so I think we’ve got a lot to improve. We ran our fastest and cleanest laps of the day in qualifying, obviously, so now we know what we need to change. Max and Jordan had their reads in practice and gave their input and recommended changes, as well. Now we’ve got night practice and then final practice to work on the car and put it all together. I think we’ll be in great shape by race time.”
Jordan Taylor, Angelelli and guest driver Ryan Hunter-Reay finished second here last year after qualifying 12th en route to the 2013 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series driver championship for the No. 10 Corvette team for WTR.
The top-five qualifiers for this weekend’s 52nd Rolex 24 At Daytona are:
1. Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing (No. 99 Corvette) with Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty and Memo Gidley (1:38.270 at 130.416 mph).
2. Spirit of Daytona Racing (No. 90 Corvette) with Richard Westbrook, and Michael Valiante (1:38.487 at 130.129 mph).
3. Starworks Motorsport (No. 78 Dinan Riley) with Scott Mayer, Alex Popow and Brendan Hartley (1:38.525 at 130.079 mph).
4. Action Express Racing (No. 5 Corvette) with Christian Fittipaldi, Joao Barbosa and Sebastien Bourdais (1:38.658 at 1:29.903 mph).
5. Action Express Racing (No. 9 Corvette) with Burt Frisselle, Brian Frisselle, John Martin and Fabien Giroix (1:38.838 at 129.667 mph).
Race time is 2:10 p.m. EST Saturday with live television of the opening two hours provided by the FOX network beginning at 2 p.m. Television coverage switches to FOX Sports 2 from 4 to 9 p.m., then to IMSA.com from 9 p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday, and concludes on FOX Sports 1 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) will provide live radio coverage for the race’s entirety on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90 and MRNRadio.com beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions can be found at www.IMSA.com, and via the IMSA smartphone app.
