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Taylor-Angelelli Persevere For Rolex Series Victory At Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen, N.Y. – Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli persevered at Watkins Glen International on Saturday to win the 30th annual Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, the sixth race of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series season.

    Victory lane – Max Angelelli, car owner Wayne Taylor and Ricky Taylor. [Joe Jennings Photo]


Driving the SunTrust Chevrolet Dallara fielded by Wayne Taylor, the winners covered 174 laps around the 3.4-mile road course and led 128 laps en route to their second consecutive Rolex Series victory. Their win also boosted them into second place in the point standings, trailing leaders Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas by 19 points.

For a meteorologist, it was a dream day as the weather offered a wide range of reporting opportunities, ranging from a lengthy rain storm, loud claps of thunder, bolts of lightning, cool temperatures and short periods of sunshine. Competitors and fans were undeterred, as they are accustomed to ever-changing weather at the historic hilltop course.

Taylor started the race in the rain before handing the car over to the fleet Angelelli with both drivers taking turns as the race wore on. And for the first time, Taylor closed out the race, taking the car to victory lane.

“Winning this race is so unbelievable and I feel so lucky to be part of this team,” Taylor said. “This win started before we started the race with Max (Angelelli) leading the technical side of the car’s engineering. During the race, the care was really fast and we had good pit stops. At the end, I was pretty nervous with Scott (Pruett) chasing me down.”

Added Angelelli, “You saw what Ricky Taylor could do today. I have to say our engineering department delivered such a great car for us.”

Sporting an ear-to-ear grin, proud father Wayne Taylor said, “This is one event I never won as a driver, but it is one that couldn’t be any better for me, my son and Max (Angelelli). And this is Ricky’s (Taylor) first time to start and finish the race.”

Second place went to series champions Pruett and Rojas, who were in contention throughout but came up 3.8 seconds short at the end. They drove the TELMEX BMW Riley fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing.

Said Pruett about the race, “We tried all kinds of things, but they didn’t work out. The race started out very nasty (weather), but it was business as usual after that. We changed the car several times and tried as hard as we could.”

A late race caution flag slowed the field but Pruett was caught behind a trio of slower GT cars for the restart, interfering with his attempt to overtake the leader. According to a post-race announcement, officials made a mistake by not separating the two classes of cars.

Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty drove the GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet Riley to third place.

The Daytona Prototypes of Michael Shank Racing (John Pew and Oswaldo Negri Jr.) and the Action Express Racing (Darren Law and David Donohue) finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

The GT class featured a hotly contested battle among the top-three finishers with the Brumos Racing Porsche GT3 Cup entry of Leh Keen and Andrew Davis taking the team’s first class victory. To gain the win, they needed a splash of gas near the end.

Keen said, “What an awesome day. Brumos does it again. It was really special to bring it home for the team and Hurley Haywood, who won here seven times. We came in for a splash of fuel at the end, and it worked out great for us.”

Second in class was the Autohaus Motorsports Camaro GT.R of Jordan Taylor, Bill Lester and Tom Milner with third going to the SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 of Jeff Segal, Guy Cosmo and Emil Assenato.

The Rolex Series races next at Road America on June 25.

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