Stevenson Pontiac Dominates Acxiom GT Battle

Stevenson Motorsports stretched the opening shifts for both Andrew Davis and Robin Liddell, who had fresher tires in the stretch run en route to the second victory of the Acxiom GT campaign.

Liddell won over SpeedSource's No. 70 Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8 of Nick Ham and Sylvain Tremblay. Paul Edwards and Kelly Collins took third in the No. 07 Drinkin' Mate Pontiac GXP.R, followed by Joe Foster and Charles Espenlaub, giving the No. 40 Dempsey Racing its best finish in GT competition.

"Nick kept me honest in the closing laps, because he could match our times." Liddell said. "But honestly, I knew we had it in the bag."

Liddell led 60 laps and Davis 14, while defending race co-winners Ham and Tremblay led 14 and four laps respectively. The only other leader was polesitter and point co-leader Leh Keen, who led the opening 11 laps in the No. 87 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3.

Keen and Dirk Werner placed fifth after winning the past three GT races and four of the last five. They maintained their points lead over Edwards and Collins, who closed to within 25 points with four events remaining (247-222). Tremblay and Ham moved from fifth to third in the standings with 211 points.

While race day temperatures reached 83 degrees, the weather was a far cry from recent years. Last year's race was held in 103-degree heat.

The next action will be the Crown Royal 200, Friday, Aug. 7 at Watkins Glen International, when the Grand-Am Rolex Series races in conjunction with the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series.