Spirit of Daytona dominates at Barber

Spirit of Daytona captured a long awaited and well deserved first Daytona Prototype class victory Saturday in the Rolex Series' Porsche 250 at Barber Motorsports Park. The driver pairing of Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook netted the win for team owner Troy Flis, who first launched the team in Grand-Am's former AGT class in 2000, and also the first for Corvette with its new DP in its second race.

The duo led all but 19 of 103 laps in the first standard two hour, 45 minute race of the season, and Garcia survived a three-lap sprint to the finish from Alex Gurney of GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing after a late race caution. Gurney, as always, co-drove with Jon Fogarty aboard the No. 99 “red dragon.”

“The car felt great all weekend, particularly in race trim,” said Westbrook, who scored the pole. “I knew we had to get the monkey off our backs.”

“The most important thing was to bring home the first victory for the Corvette DP,” added Garcia, who adds this win to an overall win in the 2009 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas finished third in the TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Riley BMW.

Mazda scored the GT class victory with the works SpeedSource team in the hands of Sylvain Tremblay and Jonathan Bomarito, the team's first win since New Jersey last year. The aging but still more than durable RX-8 won by a lap over the AIM Autosport Team FXDD Ferrari 458, posting its best result in its second race, with Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato.

“We're back in black,” Tremblay said, noting the team's switch to its usual livery rather than a white-and-black scheme that ran at Daytona. “Strategy was king and Jonathan drove one of his best races.” 

Brumos and Magnus Racing, in Porsches, battled for third place with Brumos' pairing of Leh Keen and Andrew Davis edging the Andy Lally/John Potter Magnus car. It marks Brumos' second straight podium to start the season after also finishing third in Daytona, while Magnus won the 24 hours. 

The Turner Motorsport BMW finished fifth in class, with the top Camaro (Autohaus) P6 and top Audi R8 APR Motorsport in P11. The APR Audi ran as high as second with drivers Dion von Moltke and Dr. Jim Norman.