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WeatherTech Championship

Cameron, Curran Lead Action Express 1-2 at CTMP

Dane Cameron, Eric Curran take win at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park…

Photo: Brian Cleary/BCPix.com

Photo: Brian Cleary/BCPix.com

Action Express Racing has claimed back-to-back wins, but this time with the No. 31 Corvette DP of Dane Cameron coming out on top in Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Cameron edged out the sister No. 5 entry of Joao Barbosa for he and Eric Curran’s first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of the season.

The race ended under a full-course caution for an accident by the No. 44 Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS of Andy Lally with less than two minutes remaining, but did not impact the finishing order.

The win for the No. 31 car came following an impressive three-wide pass on Cameron’s out lap on his second-to-final pit stop to get around both the No. 5 Action Express Corvette DP of Joao Barbosa and No. 10 Corvette DP of Jordan Taylor for second on the track.

Cameron then took over the lead from the No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Corvette DP of Ryan Dalziel, through GT Le Mans class traffic, with 56 minutes remaining, and never looked back from there.

Jordan Taylor was third, with Dalziel fading to fourth in his final stint but still helping give Corvette its first 1-2-3-4 sweep since the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2014.

While the No. 70 Mazda of Tom Long and Joel Miller completed the top-five, it was another heartbreaking race for the SpeedSource-run team, which saw its pole-sitting No. 55 car retire halfway through the two-hour and 40-minute race.

Tristan Nunez led the opening stages in commanding fashion, but lost time in the first pit stop due to a front air jack failure. Jonathan Bomarito brought the Mazda to a halt on track with 1 hour and 25 minutes remaining, with a right-rear hub failure.

Cameron and Curran, who claimed their first win since Road America 2015, have now closed to within four points of Prototype championship leaders Barbosa and Fitipaldi.

Prototype Challenge saw CORE autosport return to victory lane for the first time since the Twelve Hours of Sebring in March, with Colin Braun and Jon Bennett taking top class honors.

Braun edged out the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport Oreca FLM09 of Renger van der Zande by 10.482 seconds, under yellow, having taken the lead from the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports entry, which was on an alternative race strategy, with 20 minutes to go.

The No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry of Tom Kimber-Smith and Robert Alon completed the podium in third, with Kyle Marcelli fourth for Performance Tech.

The CORE entry started from the rear of the field after the team elected to start Bennett, following Braun’s class pole-winning lap on Saturday.

Misha Goikhberg completed the top-five in class, which saw the JDC-Miller entry out front for most of co-driver Stephen Simpson’s two-hour and 20-minute ironman stint until the final stop for the driver change.

RESULTS: Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix

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

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