With the world's last Grand-Am race coming up in a couple of days – the Grand-Am Championship Weekend Presented by BMW, Sat., Sept. 28 – We thought you might find useful a mini-rehash of this kind of racing at Lime Rock Park.- Scott Pruett (a five-time Rolex DP champion) and Memo Rojas have scored 27 Rolex Daytona Prototype (DP) wins since they snagged their first one together in 2007 at Iowa Speedway. Guess how many DP races he’s won at Lime Rock? None- But Pruett knows how to win at Lime Rock Park; he won the 1988 Trans-Am race in a Merkur XR4Ti at the wet-behind-the-ears age of 28
- This year, BMW-powered chassis have led the most laps, 776 of 1,731 (45%) in the 11 races so far, while Chevy-powered cars have led 683 laps (39%)
- Since 1978, there have been 38 prototype races at Lime Rock; this weekend makes 39:1978-1981 was the IMSA GTX era1982-1993 was the IMSA GTP era1994-1998 was the IMSA WSC era1999 was the USRRC SR year2000 was the Grand-Am SR year2001 was the Grand-Am SRP year2004-2013 was the ALMS LMP1/LMP2 era...and 2010-2013 was Grand-Am DP- The list of drivers that have won these Lime Rock prototype races reads like a “Who’s Who” of racing.In no particular order, victors include (list is non-comprehensive)...Al HolbertPeter GreggBrian RedmanGeoff BrabhamChris DysonMax PapisButch LeitzingerJuan Manuel Fangio IIJames WeaverJ.J. LehtoDidier TheysBob TulliusGil de FerranSarel van der MerweRyan BriscoeScott SharpKlaus GraffPrice CobbMarco WernerChip RobinsonWayne TaylorLucas LuhrMax AngelelliAllan McNishThe cars? An equally impressive roster (non-comprehensive)...Porsche 935 TurboLola T600Jaguar XJR-5 and -10Nissan ZX-TPorsche 962Toyota Eagle Mk IIIFerrari 333 SPAudi R8Acura/HPD ARXLola-MazdaRiley & Scott Fords & BMWsCorvette DPMarch-PorschePorsche RS Spyder...GT Racing at Lime Rock Park- There have been *48 GT-style races at Lime Rock since 1972, under the various sanctioning-body banners of IMSA, USRRC, Grand-Am and ALMS/IMSA, under class names including GT, GT1, GT2, GTO, GTU, GTS et al.- The marque with the most victories – no big shock – is Porsche, with 11. But Chevy is right on the 911’s rear bumper with 10 wins (5 Corvette, 4 Camaro, 1 Monza). The third-most GT wins might surprise you; Mazda, with 7. Next is Nissan’s 5 wins, Pontiac(!) at 4, Oldsmobile with 3, BMW and Ford 2, then single wins for Mercury, Dodge, Audi and Panoz*The source material is ultimateracinghistory.com (plus statistics researched for the TV broadcast by Rick Ratajczak), which though extensive does not list or differentiate classes in its result sheets; some class wins are going unaccounted for. I deduced class winners where it was obvious, but in the cases where it was not perfectly clear (for instance, back in the day Mazda RX-7s ran in both GTO and GTU).
