In the season opening BMW Performance 200 Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge at Daytona, it was Scott Maxwell and Billy Johnson bringing the Multimatic run Ford Shelby GT350R-C home with a 2.3 second win over the Compass360 Racing Shelby. The pole winning Rum Bum Porsche slowed in the last 30 seconds of the race with what appeared to be engine issues.
Scott started the race for Multimatic and ran as high as second overall before dropping back. When Billy took over, he worked the Mustang up into the lead, only to lose that lead after the final stops were completed with about 45 minutes to go. Before that stop, Johnson had a 3 second lead, but he relinquished that lead to Run Bum, when they took on tires, while the Porsche team opted to stay on their used Continental Tires. That set up a sprint to the end.
Billy: “We knew it was going to be tough overcoming a 6 second gap to the Porsche. Earlier in the race it was tough to keep up with them on the straights, then all of a sudden I started catching them. I expected a real fight to catch and pass, but it happened so fast. I figured they must have had an engine issue. From there it was just a matter of hanging on to the finish.”
A caution for a car stopped on track bunched the field, and allowed the Compass360 Shelby to catch up and eventually move into second overall, giving the Shelby its second 1-2 finish in the short history of the car.
The Compass360 Shelby, driven by Paul Holton and Pierre Kleinubing is the first privateer Shelby and was the No. 158 Multimatic car from last season.
Finishing a strong 3rd in GS was the CJ Wilson Porsche Cayman GT4. It was a great start for both the team and the car in the series, especially as they managed to lead the race early on.
Rum Bum faded to 5th overall because of a fuel delivery problem. For a while the team thought the problem was going to force them to pit, but in the end they stayed out to milk as good of a finish as they could.
In ST, it was a Porsche Cayman 1-2, with Jeff Mosing and Eric Foss winning for Murillo Racing over Spencer Pumpelly and Nick Galante for RS1.
Gary Horrocks
