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1-2 Finish Again For Action Express At Road America

Dane Cameron and Eric Curran won the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America for the second year in a row. [Andy Clary Photo]

Elkhart Lake, WI – The Action Express domination continues at Road America in the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase. The results were the same as last year with Action Express taking the top two positions with Dane Cameron and Eric Curran winning and Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa finishing second in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event at the “National Park of Speed”.

It was a bit closer this year with Barbosa chasing Cameron in their Corvette DP rides through the final half hour and a late full course caution bunching up the entire field for a five minute sprint to the end.

But it was Cameron again besting his teammate and pulling away to .626 second margin of victory, far closer than last season’s fourteen second gap when the checkers flew.

Cameron took the lead just prior to the one hour to go mark in the two hour and forty minute with a brilliant pass of then leader Jordan Taylor as they raced through traffic in turn three. From then on, Cameron never looked back. Well if he did, he saw his teammate’s hood in his mirror.

Taylor finished a disappointing third for the second season in a row with his brother Ricky and the Wayne Taylor Racing team and said that their Corvette DP was just “missing something”.

The pole sitting Mazda team continued as the quickest car in the race with you driver Tristan Nunez laying down a record race lap of 1 minute 55.458 seconds. But, early pit strategy which was a “hero or zero” shot at the victory turned out to be the wrong decision. Nunez had to pit for fuel with thirty-seven minutes to go and even with quick laps near his record pace, time was not on his side. During the final five minute dash, Nunez made contact with the Ferrari battling for the GTLM lead and it was all over but the questioning of strategy.

Besides the close racing at the front of the pack between the Prototypes, the GTLM class put on quite a show starting with the second lap of the race.

Top qualifier for the class, Dirk Mueller suffered a broken suspension in his Ford GT just four minutes into the race and was forced to the garage to make repairs, never recovering and eventually finishing six laps back in 35th.

The team car to Mueller’s took over the lead with Richard Westbrook behind the wheel after initial pitstops and the #67 Ford GT held the point till the final restart. And that is where things got interesting.

Unable to return to a fast pace right away after the green flag flew, Westbrook found himself getting pushed around by the Risi Competizione Ferrari driven by Toni Vilander. As the Ferrari pushed the Ford wide into turn five, Nick Tandy in the #911 Porsche dove inside and slid into the Ferrari as the three leaders exited the turn. Tandy spun into the wall after contact with Vilander and Westbrook was able to scoot away with the lead. But he would not be alone for long. Vilander chased down the Ford but was spun in turn one on the next lap, ending his shot at the win.

Westbrook continued with the lead and was shown the white flag, but now he had the Corvette C7.R driven by Tommy Milner on his bumper. Milner had restarted in fifth and avoided all the carnage to challenge Westbrook. With the Ford still unable to return to full speed, Milner made the pass with ease through turn four and went on to capture the 101st victory for the team.

In other racing action Tom Kimber Smith and Robert Alon won the PC class for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports and Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating kept their Dodge Viper GTR-3 upfront to win the GTD class for Riley Motorsports.

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