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Created on Saturday, 18 April 2015 13:47

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• Brothers, Ricky and Jordan Taylor win first TUDOR United SportsCar Race of 2015.

Long Beach, CA – April 18, 2015.  Following a heartbreaking penalty at Daytona and a runner-up finish at Sebring, brothers, Ricky and Jordan Taylor emerged victors at the Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase at Long Beach. Ricky Taylor started the weekend with an epic battle for the coveted pole position on Friday. In a classic Chevrolet versus Ford showdown, Taylor, in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP, went head-to-head with, Scott Pruett, in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost/Riley DP. With each lap, the contenders shaved tenths off their time but Taylor held on to the track record with a fast lap time of 1:14:790.

Saturday’s race was 100 minutes of uninterrupted green flag action. Tire wear was a non-issue even though track temps were high and the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship took to the track following two other series who laid down competing rubber. Ricky Taylor immediately jumped into the lead and never looked back. During the first, and only, round of pit stops, Jordan Taylor took over for his brother while the No. 01 Ford remained on track for two extra laps before Pruett handed the reigns over to Joey Hand. Taylor resumed the lead and the rest is history. The Taylor’s captured their first win of the 2015 season and kept the Chip Ganassi team from repeating as winners at Long Beach. Pruett and Hand finished second while the No. 90 Visit Florida team with drivers, Michael Valiante and Michael Westbrook finished third.

NOTEABLE

• Ricky Taylor set a new track record during Friday’s qualifying session posting a fast-lap time of 1:14:790.
• The No. 5 Action Express team continued their streak of finishing every lap since the first IMSA race in January of 2014.
• Saturday’s 100 minute race went green for the duration of the race.

QUOTEABLE

Ricky Taylor (No. 10 Konica Minolta Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette; finished P1 in P)

I knew I just had to keep the car clean and Pruett wasn't going to get around me unless we had traffic. The big thing was when (the Ganassi team) went two laps longer on fuel. That made Jordan (Taylor, co-driver) work a little harder and he had to fight hard to get the lead back.

The way this race was, it's such a quick race, we had to start on qualifying tires so normally that would worry you. It's longer than you want to go on a set of tires but there's no other strategy option, you have to go until your test home lap. So that's the longest we'll ever do on a set of tires and they were good. It was the worst conditions. We had to run on Indy car rubber, hot outside, and pushing as hard as we can the whole time. That was as hard as a tire was going to have to work and I thought it was pretty solid.

Scott Pruett (No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing w/Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost/Riley; finished P2 in P)

We ran hard. It's a big turnaround from Sebring. I can't say enough about ford EcoBoost. We ran a couple extra laps and we were able to take the lead and we couldn't quite hold on to it. It was a solid day, great for the fans and nerve racking for us.

Michael Valiante (No. 90 Visit Florida Corvette; finished P3 in P)

It went well. We started fourth and we didn't have the pace of the leaders but we finished on the podium again and closed up the points for the championship. In that sense it was great but we've got some work to do in the next couple of weeks to catch up and pick up some time to get close to the No. 10 car because they're obviously fast every week.

The tires held up quite well. In this heat they can fall off but they were pretty consistent and no one really had any issues so they were good.

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