Infant TUSCC Growing Pains Clear in Second Round of Championship
Photo: John Dagys
Three significant crashes and a lot of yellow flag time, resulted in finger pointing to younger, inexperienced drivers making careless mistakes. The hierarchy of the TUSCC has instituted a driver ranking system that rates drivers based on experience, skill, seat time, charm, hit points, maybe even daily caloric intake and amount of facial hair. The rankings were revised between Daytona and Sebring, leaving some drivers sidelined. The drivers are assigned precious metal status (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze) and each team is to have a diverse range of metals (ratings) driving their cars. There is far more to it, but I’m limited on word count.
The driver rating issue, as well as the decision to drop IMSA’s experienced traveling safety crew in favor of event staffed safety crews has owners and drivers raising concerns. Two of this weekend’s crashes resulted in fires and the response times were inexcusably long. Luckily both drivers were uninjured and were able to get out of their burning cars on their own.
The Ganassi team of Pruett, Rojas, and Franchitti brought home the win in Florida. The win by Chip Ganassi’s No.1 Telcel, Eco-boost powered Ford Daytona Prototype (DP) secures him as the only team owner to win the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500, the Rolex 24, the Brickyard 500, and now the 12 hours of Sebring.
IMSA’s new Balance of Power between the Daytona and Le Mans (LMP) prototypes seems to be getting closer to making the vastly different styles of prototype cars equal. The No. 1 LMP Extreme Speed Motorsports entry piloted by Sharp, Dalziel, and Brabham finished second to the Ganassi Team DP. Third in the Prototype class was the Action Express Racing DP of Barbosa, Fittipaldi, and Bourdais.
In the Prototype Challenge (PC) class, the No. 54 CORE Autosport ORECA FLM09 of Bennett, Braun, and Gue made it two wins in a row followed by the No. 9 RSR Racing entry of Ende, Junqueira, and Hansson. Third in PC, and a distant 21’s overall, went to PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports drivers Cheng, Van Der Zande, Bird, and Fuentes.
In GT Le Mans (GTLM) the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR driven by Long, Christensen, and Bergmeister took the win. Second place went to the No. 93 SRT Viper GTS-R of R.Bell, Bomarito, and Wittmer followed by the No. 55 BMW Z4 GTE entry piloted by Auberlen, Priaulx, and Hand.
GT Daytona (GTD) saw the No. 44 Porsche 911 GT America, Magnus Racing entry of Potter, Lally, and Seefried take the win over the No. 555 AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 Italia of Sweedler, T.Bell, Mediani, and Segal. Finishing third was the No. 23 Porsche 911 GT America of Alex Job Racing driven by James, M. Farnbacher, and Riberas.
The next round of the 2014 TUSCC will only see the Prototype and GTLM classes run on the streets of Long Beach California April 11th and 12th.
The Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase at Long Beach will air on 4/12/2014 at 6:00PM on FOX Sports 1.