John Dagys | Posted June 29, 2012 Watkins Glen, NY
Richard Westbrook topped the time charts in the opening practice for Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen (11 a.m. ET, Live! SPEED).
The Spirit of Daytona driver reeled off a best lap time of 1:42.891, leading a Corvette 1-2-3 in the two-hour session.
The No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Chevrolet of Jon Fogarty was second, 0.096 seconds behind, while Ricky Taylor stormed to a 1:42.994 lap time to put his SunTrust Racing Corvette in third.
Michael Shank Racing’s Ozz Negri led the way for much of the session but settled for fourth quickest, thanks to the Brazilian’s 1:43.331 lap time. Negri’s co-driver, two-time Pro-Am Trueman champion John Pew, was less than a half-second from the Brazilian’s quickest time.
Road America winners Chip Ganassi Racing completed the top-five overall and in the Daytona Prototype category with its No. 01 Riley-BMW of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.
In GT, the No. 42 Team Sahlen’s Mazda RX-8 of Dane Cameron led the way. Cameron posted a best lap time of 1:51.937, edging out the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R of John Edwards and Robin Liddell by 0.102 seconds.
Stevenson’s sister Camaro, which returns to action this weekend with Autohaus Motorsports refugee Jordan Taylor, was third.
The session saw two notable incidents, the first coming from Dr. Jim Norman, who ran his No. 51 APR Audi R8 GRAND-AM off-course in Turn 7.
The No. 2 Starworks Motorsport Riley-Ford also sustained considerable damage following an accident by Lucas Luhr in Turn 9.
It’s unclear if both cars will be repaired in time for this afternoon’s practice, scheduled to get underway at 2 p.m. ET.
RESULTS: Practice 1
John Dagys is SPEED.com’s Sportscar Racing Reporter, focusing on all major domestic and international championships. You can follow him on Twitter @johndagys or email him at askdagys@gmail.com