In Saturday evening’s Continental Tire 200 presented by Dunns Tire for the Rolex Sports Car Series, pit strategy was the main factor in determining the winner. Ryan Dalziel, driving the No. 8 Ford Riley for Starworks Motorsport, made his final pit stop a lap prior to the leading No. 60 Ford Riley driven by Ozz Negri, Jr. for Michael Shank Racing. Dalziel had an excellent out lap and was able to beat Negri to pit out.
From there, Dalziel pulled away from the pack while Negri held up a train of four additional Daytona Prototypes. Sebastien Bourdais, driving the Soloson Import-sponsored No. 2 for Starworks, passed Negri for second when he blew a right front tire as a result of flat spots. However, by that point, Dalziel had a 14 second lead.
A late crash involving the Horton Autosport Porsche No. 73 of Patrick Lindsey and the No. 5 Action Express Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP of David Donohue brought out a late caution with 16 minutes remaining. On the restart with four laps to go, Dalziel pulled out a small advantage and held on to take his (and co-driver Lucas Luhr’s) first win of the year.
Bourdais’ second-place finish (shared with Alex Popow) marked Starworks’ first 1-2 finish in the Rolex Sports Car Series. Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas were third, while the duo of Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli were fourth. Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney rounded out the top-5.
In GT, a similar story played out as Turner Motorsport got the lone BMW M3 in the field out of the pits ahead of the Marsh Racing No. 31 Chevrolet Corvette driven by Eric Curran, which had led much of the race from pole. The final restart gave Curran, who had the faster of the two cars, one more chance to catch Auberlen. However, Auberlen jumped out to enough of an advantage to take the victory, shared with Paul Dalla Lana.
Curran, sharing with Boris Said was second, followed by the duo of Andrew Davis and Leh Keen in the No. 59 Porsche in third. Magnus Racing’s Andy Lally and John Potter were fourth, while Charles Espenlaub and Charles Putman in Dempsey Racing’s No. 41 rounded out the top-5.