Michael Valiante is to join Richard Westbrook for a full season aboard the Spirit of Daytona Racing Corvette DP in the 2014 Tudor United SportsCar Championship.
And the full season pairing will be joined at the Rolex 24 of Daytona by 2013 DTM Champion and 2010 Rolex 24 winner Mike Rockenfeller.
The Valiante/ Westbrook pairing already have a race win in the Spirit of Daytona DP under their belts with victory back in 2012 at Mid Ohio. Westbrook returns for his third consecutive season with the team.
“Michael did a great job for us in 2012, and we are really excited for him to be back with us full-time this year,” said team owner Troy Flis.
“He and Westy work really well together, and I think with some of the changes we are looking at on the engineering side of our program, we should not only come out of the box much stronger, but we will hopefully be able to develop a championship-contending campaign with our Corvette DP. New tracks, new rules, new races–there are a ton of new challenges for us to adjust to this year. We want to be in a position to maximize our opportunity, and having this driver line up will be an important part of that for us.”
“I am looking forward to working with Michael once again and hopefully we can pick up where we left off in 2012,” said Westbrook, who added a Sebring 12 Hour victory with Corvette Racing to his racing resume in 2013.
“As a group, we’ve got very clear goals for 2014 and Troy (Flis) is doing everything he can to put this team in position to reach those goals. There are a lot of question marks about next year, so all I can think about is getting back in the car and getting to work, so I am very excited to have Michael on board.” “I’m really happy to have the full-season program in place and to be coming back to Spirit of Daytona Racing,” said Valiante.
“It is a good feeling to have our plans in place, and to be able to now focus on what we need to do to be ready to go at Daytona.”
