SunTrust Racing settles for third starting position at Mid-Ohio

#10 Suntrust Racing Chevrolet Corvette Dallara Dp: Max Angelelli, Ricky Taylor

Photo by: Jackie Buys

The No. 10 SunTrust Corvette Dallara DP of Wayne Taylor Racing, seeking its third GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series victory in the last four races, will start Saturday’s EMCO Gears Classic from the inside of the second row after qualifying Friday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington.

Ricky Taylor, who co-drives the SunTrust Racing machine with veteran Italian Max Angelelli, clocked a fast qualifying lap of 1 minute, 18.499 seconds (103.557 mph) on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio circuit. It was good for third among 26 car-and-driver combinations entered for Saturday’s two-hour, 45-minute race. Taylor missed his third consecutive front-row qualifying effort at Mid-Ohio by just five-hundredths of a second.

“I’m a little disappointed,” said Taylor, who put SunTrust Racing on the front row in qualifying each of the last two years at Mid-Ohio. “We knew the 99 (Jon Fogarty in the No. 99 Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP) was going to be really strong and we knew the 90 (Michael Valiente in the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP) was going to be pretty strong. I would have liked to have been second. I was pushing really hard. But third’s good. I think we can race well from there. The 99 is definitely going to be strong tomorrow, so we just need to continue our good pit stops and good strategy, and we can be there for the win.”

Taylor, who with Angelelli won back-to-back Rolex Series events in April and May at Homestead-Miami Speedway and New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, will start behind polesitter Fogarty, who also was the fastest qualifier at last week’s Chevrolet GRAND-AM 200 on Detroit’s Belle Isle street circuit, and Valiente, who was second-fastest today.