TUSC - Petit Le Mans: a Taylor family affair
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TUSC - Petit Le Mans: a Taylor family affair

On Saturday, brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor, along with Max Angelelli for this occasion, reached the highest step on the podium at the 17th edition of Petit Le Mans. A race their father won in 1998, the year the race began...

Contrary to popular belief, the race in Georgia has only closed the American endurance season since 2010, the honour having gone to Laguna Seca in California up until then. Contrary to another popular belief, Petit Le Mans has not always figured on the American Le Mans Series calendar: the first edition, which took place October 10, 1998, was a part of the PSCR (Professional Sports Car Racing) championship.

Winner of the championship in 1994 and 1996 (the year the IMSA GT Championship became the PSCR), Wayne Taylor and his teammates Eric van de Poele and Emmanuel Collard were victors at the first edition of Petit Le Mans with a Ferrari 333SP. It was with the same car that Taylor won a class victory at the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans, for his 10th participation in La Sarthe.

Taylor would then join legendary Cadillac in endurance in the early 2000s, just as would van de Poele and Collard. He competed in the ALMS and the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 2000 to 2002, namely along with Max Angelelli, but following the end of the American manufacturer's program, the South African driver turned to the Grand Am Series.

Taylor, two-time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona, went on to start his own outfit in 2004. First called SunTrust Racing, in honour of its main sponsor, the team gave its owner-driver the title, with his faithful accomplice Angelelli, at the end of the 2005 season. In 2008, Taylor hung up his race suit and called upon his son Ricky to replace him alongside the Italian driver. In 2013, the partnership with SunTrust bank ended and this time the other brother, Jordan Taylor, got behind the wheel with Angelelli and the duo scored the Driver title at the end of the year.

In 2014, the Wayne Taylor Racing team competed in the inaugural season of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, born of the merger between the American Le Mans Series and the Grand Am Series, with a Corvette DP. At the wheel, Taylor reunited his sons, Ricky and Jordan. The first participed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Larbre Compétition's Morgan-Judd in the LM P2 class (unranked) and the latter with the official Corvette Racing team (second in the LM GTE Pro class). The two brothers remained in the Driver title race up until the last round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, but fell short despite their win at Petit Le Mans last weekend, 16 years after their father's victory...

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