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VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP Races To Victory In Rain-Soaked Sahlen’s Six Hours Of The Glen

Winning VisitFlorida.com Prototype leads Action Express Racing entry through boot. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Winning VisitFlorida.com Prototype leads Action Express Racing entry through boot. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Watkins Glen, N. Y. – The VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP of Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante sloshed their way to victory in the rain-soaked the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, the sixth TUDOR United SportsCar Championship event in 2015.

When the conditions became treacherous as the race neared the end, Westbrook pounced and took first place in the waning minutes to score the Troy Flis-owned team its second victory of the season.

Valiante won for the fifth time and teammate Westbrook took his eighth victory, plus they became the first repeat victors of the season. In winning, they took over sole possession of the point lead.

“I haven’t felt the best in the last three days, but this win makes me feel better,” Valiante said. “It was a really tough race, and we talked beforehand about staying out of trouble. We didn’t have the overall pace of the others, but we kept our heads down. It was really difficult to see after having a windshield failure early-on. Everything just fell right for us at the end.”

Stated Westbrook, “We had plenty of fuel at end and when Michael brought the car in, I thought we had a chance. It was so much fun out there, especially at the beginning when we were on slicks with a bit of drizzle. I knew Joey (Hand) would have to pit at end, which was going to be good for us. Then, we just had to keep it off the paint and bring it home, but it was difficult as there were rivers running across the track.”

The event started under dark skies and a slight drizzle falling with the temperature a cool 60 degrees. Thirty minutes into the long race the rain stopped and teams came in to replace wet tires with slicks. Some four hours into the event, the rain returned in earnest and due to standing water on the track, the race was stopped for 14 minutes, to allow sweepers to push water off the turns.

When the race was stopped, Ricky Taylor held a 20-second advantage over Joey Hand with Joao Barbosa farther back in third place. At the restart, Oliver Gavin (Corvette) tangled with a Porsche and crashed into the inner guard-rail.

Taylor took the lead after the next restart only to crash hard in turn 10, taking Hand with him. The former’s car was heavily damaged but the latter’s only slightly so. Barbosa missed the action and took command, but upon pitting a lap later, he was caught speeding on pit road and gave up the lead after serving a drive-through penalty.

Hand assumed the lead as drenching rains once again doused the track and the competitors slowly circulated the track running under the caution flag. However, he gave up the lead with 10 minutes to go when he pitted for fuel.

Running second with eight minutes to go, Westbrook pounced and when subsequent crashes and more rain slowed the race once more, the final laps were run under the yellow flag.

Finishing second was the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford Riley DP of Hand and Scott Pruett.

Third went to the Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Barbosa and Fittipaldi.

In the GT LeMans class, the Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR scored the victory in the expert hands of Bryan Sellers and Wolf Henzler.

Said Sellers, “It was a difficult race for us, and I didn’t enjoy the conditions at all. We had trouble with tire temperatures throughout and got down before clawing our way back. Once we got our lap back, our race to the front started. And then with a good strategy and a little bit of luck, we held on. Every win has its place in your memory and for me, this will rank as one of my favorites because of the news that Falken is going to discontinue the program at end of season.”

Added Henzler, “We made changes during practice, and they worked out well for the race. At the end, we gambled on fuel and it was close, but the yellow flags helped us plus I was working hard to save fuel.”

Second in class was the Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR of Jorg Bergmeister and Earl Bamber with third going to the BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE of Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner.

The GT Daytona class victory went to the Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT of Marc Goosens, Cameron Lawrence and Al Carter.

Renger van der Zande, Mike Hedlund and Alex Popow took the Prototype Challenge win driving the Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09.
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