Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas clinched their second GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype championship together Saturday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with their series-record eighth overall victory in a season.
Pruett and Rojas drove the No. 01 BMW-Riley to a 2.005-second advantage over the polesitting Stallings Chevrolet-Riley of Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty to score the win, the first for the Ganassi duo at the 2.709-mile track. It also gave the pair their 17th victory together, adding to their record total and clinched a fourth Daytona Prototype team championship for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.
Behind Fogarty/Gurney, Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli finished third in the No. 10 SunTrust Ford-Dallara, another four seconds back. While they can mathematically tie for the championship in the Salt Lake City finale, the Ganassi team would prevail on the tiebreaker for winning more races.
David Donohue and Darren Law placed fourth in the No. 59 Brumos Porsche-Riley, followed by Antonio Garcia and Buddy Rice in the Porsche-Coyote.
In the GT class, Paul Edwards came from being nearly a lap down to win, giving the Banner Racing Corvette its first victory of the season in the Chevrolet Corvette. Co-driver Scott Russell - a former World Superbike champion and five-time winner of the Daytona 200 - scored his first victory on four wheels.
Edwards took the lead with five minutes of racing to go, passing both Stevenson Corvettes of Robin Liddell and Ronnie Bremer on the same lap.
Bremer and Gunther Schaldach finished second in the Stevenson Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro, ahead of their teammates Liddell and Andrew Davis. Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato finished fourth for the fifth time this season in the No. 69 Mazda RX-8, opening up an eight-point lead (318-310) over SpeedSource teammate Sylvain Tremblay in the championship. Tremblay, who shares the No. 70 Mazda RX-8 with Jonathan Bomarito, finished seventh.
Ryan Dalziel entered the race second DP in the championship - 26 points behind the leaders - but did not drive in the race after co-driver Mike Forest parked the No. 8 BMW-Riley with a broken ring and pinion after eight laps.
The lone Canadian-based DP was eliminated on the second lap when Burt Frisselle spun in his own oil on the second lap and spun into the guardrail approaching Turn 11, ending the day for the Ford-Riley co-driven by Mark Wilkins.
The third caution waved just before the one-hour mark when Mark Patterson spun the No. 77 Ford-Dallara into the tire barrier in Turn 4 while trying to hold off race leader Fogarty. Dion von Moltke was able to return to the race in the Doran Racing entry.
The race leaders took advantage of the caution for Patterson's incident to pit and change drivers. The final caution waved with 30 minutes remaining, setting up a 17-minute sprint to the finish.