Pruett, Rojas Brave the Heat

[admin]

Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen Race Recap

Iron man Scott Pruett braved the heat at Watkins Glen International Saturday, running the final three hours to win the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen, Round 7 of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16.

Pruett passed Ricardo Zonta on a restart with 45 minutes remaining and went on to score his fourth victory in six Daytona Prototype races, co-driving the No. 01 TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley with Memo Rojas.

Pruett took the checkered flag 3.033 seconds ahead of Darren Law, who co-drove the No. 58 Brumos Porsche Riley with David Donohue.

"The car was very good and the Ganassi guys did a great job on pit stops," Pruett said. "The Lexus engine was great and the tires were very consistent."

"Conditions were difficult," Rojas said. "Staying out there three hours was a great effort by Scott."

Max Angelelli secured a podium finish with a side-by-side pass of Oswaldo Negri with three laps remaing. Angelelli was driving the pole-winning No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac Riley with Michael Valiante, with the team making a remarkable comeback from a highway fire that destroyed the team's primary Dallara race car, along with its equipment and spares, following the most recent Daytona Prototype race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Negri and Mark Patterson took fourth in the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley, followed by the No. 77 Doran Racing Kodak Ford Dallara of Memo Gidley and Brad Jaeger.

The GT race came down to the wire, with Jeff Segal passing Paul Edwards in the Esses with 33 minutes remaining and going on to score the first Grand-Am Rolex Series victory for the No. 69 SpeedSource FXDD Mazda RX-8 co-driven by Emil Assentato and Nick Longhi.

Longhi won by 5.817 seconds over the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Pontiac GXP.R of Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis. Third went to the No. 07 Banner Racing Pontiac GXP.R of Edwards and Kelly Collins.

The race was slowed by nine cautions.

Tim George Jr. lost the brakes on the No. 67 TRG Porsche GT3 in the Inner Loop on the opening lap, collecting the No. 40 Hyper Sport Mazda RX-8 of Joe Foster. George and co-driver Spencer Pumpelly entered the race 19 points behind GT leaders Edwards and Collins. The Porsche duo managed to return to action.

Other victims included the No. 87 Farnbacher Loles Porsche GT3 of Wolf Henzler, taken out by a spinning car in Turn 6, and the No. 47 Doran Racing Ford Dallara of Richard Antinucci, which caught fire in the boot section of the 3.4-mile circuit.

The next race for the Grand-Am Rolex Series will be the June 21 EMCO Gear's Classic presented by KeyBank at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The race will be televised live on SPEED at 5 p.m. ET.