Action Express Goes 1-2 at Road America

Photo: DarrenPierson.com

Action Express Racing claimed its third TUDOR United SportsCar Championship victory of the season following a dominant 1-2 run for the team in Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase.

Dane Cameron took the No. 31 Corvette DP to a 14.359-second win over teammate Joao Barbosa in a relatively clean and green two-hour and 40-minute race at Road America.

Cameron, who took over controls of the Whelen-sponsored entry during the race’s only full-course caution early in the opening hour, held control from the middle of the second hour, following a hard-fought battle with two other Corvette DPs.

It even saw the two Action Express entries make slight contact with each other early, but both held on with no major drama in the second half, which had the defending Prototype champions firmly in control.

The only significant late-race incident came from Barbosa in the final 20 minutes when he spun the No. 5 Corvette DP in Turn 1 but quickly returned to action.

The Prototype class saw its share of attrition, first with the pole-sitting Chip Ganassi Racing Riley-Ford DP of Joey Hand, who dropped back with a turbo gasket issue in the first hour.

Scott Pruett rebounded to a third place finish, ahead the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P2 Honda of Ozz Negri and John Pew in fourth.

The Shank entry started from the pit lane after a fuel leak in warmup and was running third until a late off-course excursion by the Brazilian.

The Taylor brothers have effectively been eliminated from championship contention after suspected suspension issues saw Jordan Taylor lose three laps and drop them out of contention for the win.

There was also drama for points leaders VisitFlorida.com Racing, after Richard Westbrook spun after contact from Christian Fittipaldi in the opening hour.

Westbrook dropped to 19th at the time but rebounded for a fourth place overall finish, ahead of the DeltaWing, which completed the top-five after a trouble-free run.

The VisitFlorida.com pairing now lead the championship only by a single point over Action Express’ Barbosa and Fittipaldi heading into next month’s penultimate round of the season at Circuit of The Americas.

After a number of near-misses and bad luck, Performance Tech Motorsports appeared to be en route to a breakthrough victory in Prototype Challenge, but a spin by Conor Daly on the final lap threw it away.

Instead, RSR Racing’s Bruno Junqueira picked up class honors, taking his No. 11 Oreca FLM09 to top class honors for the second time of the year.

Junqueira and co-driver Chris Cumming dominated the race from the start, but a fuel saving effort for pole-sitter James French saw Daly take over the lead in the closing stint but slowly came until attack by the Brazilian.

Daly and French had to settle for second on the day, ahead of Colin Braun and Jon Bennett in third, who extend their lead in the drivers’ championship over PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports with two rounds to go.

Title rivals Tom Kimber-Smith and Mike Guasch were fourth, with the BAR1 Motorsports entry completing the top-five in class.

RESULTS: Continental Tire Road Race Showcase

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John