Porsche, CORE leave no doubt of their ability in Daytona - MotorSportsTalk

Action Express Racing took home the glory of the overall Rolex 24 at Daytona win, and Level 5 Motorsports was the leading headline at the end of Sunday after winning the GT Daytona class following an IMSA review.

CORE autosport and Porsche were left in the middle as the other two class winners (PC, GT Le Mans) after nearly flawless runs that should not go unrecognized.

Jon Bennett’s team, run by Morgan Brady, has expanded from running in IMSA Prototype Lites just a few years ago to advancing into the American Le Mans Series’ PC class, where it won the last three team championships.

In 2013, CORE was announced as an official partner to Porsche’s factory; the team ran an ALMS GT class-911 GT3 RSR for the last eight races in the 2013 season, and would additionally serve as the U.S. arm of support for Porsche’s factory-run program for its pair of new 911 RSRs in 2014.

The new 911 had one prior 24-hour race under its belt, last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the team finished 1-2 in the GTE Pro class. Meanwhile the tried-and-tested PC car was competing in its first ever 24-hour race; the longest PC race before was 12 hours.

The No. 911 911 ran consistently in GTLM throughout the night, leading most of the race and expanding its gap when some of its other challengers ran into issues. Nick Tandy, Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet were the winning co-drivers.

“We came into this race treating it as an old-fashioned endurance race,” said Tandy. “So many of the races we do are really now sprint races and you have to go flat out for the duration of the race to have a chance but we said this weekend we have to take care of the equipment, the tires, the engine and not make any mistakes. There were times when we knew we could just cruise around and pick off laps but there were also times we had to push really at maximum. It shows we had the best team overall for the full 24 hours.”

Tandy is now on a three-race winning streak in North America, in three different Porsches, in three different classes.

The Brit won the GTC class at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca last May with MOMO NGT Motorsport, and also the ALMS GT class in the series finale at Petit Le Mans with the privateer Team Falken Tire squad in a 2010-spec 911 GT3 RSR.

Meanwhile the polesitting CORE PC car was spun on the opening lap of the 24-hour race, with team principal Jon Bennett driving. But pit strategy executed by new engineer Tom Brown, who rejoined the team after an IndyCar stint, saw Bennett’s full-season co-driver Colin Braun back in the lead after five hours.

Braun, Bennett and co-drivers Mark Wilkins and James Gue were consistent from there, before Braun held off 8Star Motorsports’ (and former CORE driver) Tom Kimber-Smith in the waning stages.

Braun, who’s only 25, was already competing in his 10th Rolex 24 and now has his first class victory.

“It’s great to win it obviously that’s what we’ve all tried to accomplish,” said one of North America’s top young sports car drivers. “This is my 10th time competing here, so to win it is really special. I’ve tried, and I know how hard it is to win, and how many crazy things can happen and you can get stripped of it. I’m really proud of these guys; they did an awesome job.”

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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