Taylor Hails VIR Triumph as “Classic Corvette Racing Victory”

Photo: Richard Prince/GM

Jordan Taylor hailed Sunday’s Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway as a “classic Corvette Racing victory” that came down to strategy and hitting fuel numbers in his No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD.

Taylor and co-driver Antonio Garcia claimed their second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win of the season in the GT-only round, following a race-long battle with the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat.

“We were pushing the whole race even on the first cycle to close the gap to the Lexus to see if we could make them make a mistake,” said Taylor.

“When the second yellow came out, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Those guys really restart strong so I thought we were kind of out of it.

“But the Corvette guys made an amazing call to short-fill on the last stop to get us out front and get the track position.”

Taylor rejoined ahead of Barnicoat, who stalled leaving his pit box and rejoined nearly on the racing line.

“The engineers just told me to push on the out-lap, so I knew it was all down to my out-lap, my in-lap and the short fill and calculating how much we needed to jump them,” Taylor explained.

“They told me when he was leaving the pits, and it was quite early so they didn’t say he stalled; they said he’s leaving so I thought he’d be pretty far ahead of me by the time I got there.

“I crested the hill and saw he was still at pit-out, and I had so much momentum that I knew for sure I was going to go by him.

“I’m not sure what he was doing, but he drifted all the way across the racing line. He for sure saw me, so I’m not sure what that was about. But I wasn’t going to lift. I would have driven through him if I had to at that point to get the lead.

“It was a sigh of relief because I didn’t know I had to save fuel at that point. But they told me after that what the fuel number was, and the stress crept in until I kind of found a rhythm of hitting that number with my lift points and finding the lap time.

“Once I got into a rhythm, I felt pretty good. With about 15 laps to go, I felt pretty confident that the tires weren’t dropping too much.”

The win not only kept Taylor and Garcia in the championship fight, 144 points behind the Lexus duo, but also came less than two weeks after Taylor’s announcement that he would be departing Chevrolet to return to Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport next year.

“This will definitely be one of the most special wins I’ll ever have,” he said. “This was a classic Corvette Racing victory.

“We didn’t have the fastest car. Antonio was able to stay in contention in that first stint, and we made some gains on fuel-savings in that first stint to get closer to the Lexus for when I was in the car.

“This win is down to Corvette Racing calling that strategy to get us track position.

“I know the announcement (about going to GTP in 2024) has come out, but I’m glad to give these guys one back.”

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