Championship Battle TightensStarworks Takes Fourth PC Victory With Late-Race PassJordan Taylor held off a charging Dane Cameron to win Saturday’s Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of The Americas. It was the third IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of the season for the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette Daytona Prototype started by Ricky Taylor, enabling the brothers to close to within seven points in the Prototype class battle with only one race remaining.Cameron ran down Taylor and pulled alongside him with 13 minutes remaining, but Taylor held on to the lead, beating Cameron to the checkered flag by 1.421 seconds. That ended a two-race winning streak for the No. 31 Action Express Racing Whelen Engineering Corvette DP.“During the strategy meeting coming into this race, we talked about going for the win or going for the points,” said Ricky Taylor, who started from the pole. “Today was all about the win. I think the team did a great job. The stops were all great and the strategy was perfect. I feel like we had a great car the last 3 times we were here, and it’s great to finally get a win.” Jordan Taylor admitted feeling the heat in the latter stages of the event.“I had an issue where the car went off the track a bit, and when I hit the accelerator the traction control didn’t catch it,” Jordan Taylor said. “I instantly turned off traction control to try and whip the car around and eventually put myself in a really bad spot. Thankfully, the guys were able to walk me through what was wrong and I was able to fix it. It was hot today, and I did two hours, 10 minutes. If it wasn’t for our new cool suit technology, I don’t think we would have made it.”Action Express teammates Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa finished third in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP. Entering the season-ending Petit Le Mans presented by Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort at Road Atlanta on Saturday, Oct. 1, Curran and Cameron unofficially have 285 points to 284 for Fittipaldi and Barbosa, with the Taylor brothers third with 278 points.Starworks’ Van Der Zande, Popow Win fourth of the year, Extend PC LeadRenger van der Zande passed James French with seven minutes remaining, going on to score the fourth Prototype Challenge (PC) victory of the season for the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09, started by Alex Popow, extending their lead in the championship with one race remaining.Van der Zande beat a rapidly closing Tom Kimber-Smith to the checkered flag by 0.844 seconds. Entering the finale at Road Atlanta, the Starworks drivers hold a 10-point lead (329-319) over Kimber-Smith and Robert Alon, who started the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA FLM09 from the pole.“This was a really hard fight,” van der Zande said. “For my first stint I had Tom (Kimber-Smith) on my tail the whole time. It was a very clean race, with a lot of almost touching. Then at the end, I was able to catch James (French) on traffic, and we had a clean fight as well. It was well done for James. He’s improved so much it’s unbelievable.”French took the lead with just over one hour remaining and led 29 laps in a bid to give Performance Tech Motorsports its first WeatherTech Championship victory. He lost the lead with three laps remaining, and was then passed by Kimber-Smith heading to the white flag. French held on to take third in the No. 38 ORECA started by Nicholas Boulle.Matt McMurry led 16 laps in the strong run for the No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA, joining Bruno Junqueira in a fourth-place finish.View full results via Al Kamel Systems at Results.IMSA.comNOTEBOOKIn a key moment of the race, the Action Express Racing teammates got together in Turn 13 on the seventh lap while battling for fourth. Fittipaldi spun and continued – losing four positions in the process. Curran was assessed a drive-through penalty for the contact, falling to last in the class and 40 seconds behind the leader.“I was racing for position with my teammate Christian,” Curran said. I thought we had a little bit faster Whelen Engineering Corvette at that point of the race. He went a little wide in a few corners. I got up next to him and got a run on him, but I didn’t expect his move. I stayed in my position, but I hit the curb. Unfortunately, that bounced me into him and spun him around. That’s not what I wanted – that’s not the way I race.”Performance Tech Motorsports’ fifth podium finish of the season was bittersweet, given that French seemed in a position to give Brent O’Neil’s team its first WeatherTech Championship victory .“This is extremely disappointing – I thought I had it,” said French, who joined Kyle Marcelli in finishing second at Watkins Glen for the team’s best finish since winning an ALMS race in Baltimore in 2013. “It was very hot in the car. It was a great race. We played the strategy really well and had a nice lead. I just got pushed hard at the end. But the car held up awesome the whole race, so we’ll take the podium”The first caution waved at the 34-minute mark when Marc Goossens lost the driveshaft on the No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Corvette DP while running fourth. Co-driver Ryan Dalziel later rejoined the race 36 laps down, avoiding the team’s first mechanical DNF since Road America in 2013, when it retired with gearbox problems.The second and final caution period began moments after the initial restart 52 minutes into the race. When the event went back to green, the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Honda Ligier JS P2 of John Pew and the No. 0 Panoz DeltaWing Coupe of Katherine Legge spun in Turn 1. Pew collected a temporary WeatherTech sign on his windshield. He drove through several corners but was unable to shed the sign, forcing him to stop and bringing out a brief caution. Legge was assessed a drive-through penalty for the contact.