Action Express Racing’s pair of Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa emerged victorious in Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase, the ninth round for Prototypes, eighth for GT Le Mans/ GT Daytona and seventh for Prototype Challenge in the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season.
Barbosa pitted on Lap 38 along with the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ford EcoBoost Riley, No. 1 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b and No. 42 OAK Racing Morgan Nissan; with an hour and one minute remaining in the two-hour, 45-minute race, this set them up to run to the finish.
The No. 1 car, one of the P2-spec cars, was unable to do anything about the horsepower of the Daytona Prototype-spec cars this race, and fell from the lead to the ultimate third place finish behind the winning No. 5 Corvette DP and Shank’s No. 60.
The win is the third this year, second consecutive, for Action Express; Shank’s pair of Ozz Negri and John Pew have both their first podium and best result of 2014. Scott Sharp and polesitter Ryan Dalziel made it onto the podium for the second time this season (Sebring, finished second).
Starworks Motorsport held off 8Star Motorsports to win in PC, with Renger van der Zande and Mirco Schultis victorious for the second time this season (Monterey, May). Van der Zande emerged ahead of Sean Rayhall on the final pit stop sequence and Rayhall, who co-drove with Luis Diaz, was resigned to a runner-up finish.
Risi Competizione (GTLM) and Turner Motorsport (GTD) took respective victories in the GT ranks, and although both the No. 62 Ferrari F458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella and Pierre Kaffer and No. 94 Turner BMW Z4 GT3 of Dane Cameron and Markus Palttala made it look easy, neither had it that way.
The six cautions during the two-hour, 45-minute race interrupted the flow pretty heavily. Despite the cautions – which seemed to take out a litany of cars – the race was still able to at least end under green.
