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Long Beach USC: Taylor brothers defeat Ganassi's Hand and Pruett

Ricky and Jordan Taylor won the Tudor United SportsCar Championship race on the streets of Long Beach, seeing off the challenge of Ganassi's Scott Pruett and Joey Hand

After starting from the front of the pack, Ricky Taylor led Pruett through the first stint and opened up a two-second advantage before pitting to hand over to his brother.

The Ganassi car was able to remain out on track for another couple of laps, and that combined with quick driver change enabled Hand to emerge ahead of the Wayne Taylor Racing entry.

Jordan Taylor was quickly up to speed at the start of his stint though and reclaimed the lead with a bold dive down the inside of Hand at Turn 1.

The lead gap fluctuated over the remaining 40 minutes but Hand couldn't get back within striking distance and Jordan Taylor took victory by a final margin of three seconds.

The Spirit of Daytona car of Michael Valiante and Richard Westbrook held a relatively quiet third place before and after the pitstop sequence.

Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa spent most of the race running in fourth for Action Express Racing, but Barbosa succumbed to the sister entry of Eric Curran/Dane Cameron late on as car issues set in.

The Michael Shank Racing Ligier of John Pew and Oswaldo Negri completed the top six.

BMW WINS GTLM

In GTLM, Giancarlo Fisichella shot through into the lead at the start of the race in the Risi Ferrari ahead of the front-row sharing BMWs, and the three-time Formula 1 grand prix winner was able to keep the two Z4s at bay until the pitstops.

Pierre Kaffer joined the race in the Ferrari with a decent lead, while the #25 BMW of Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner slipped to fourth during the stops behind the sister #24 car of John Edwards and Lucas Luhr and the #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia.

Werner was able to make quick work of Garcia and Luhr however and set about closing the eight-second gap to Kaffer with half an hour to go.

With just over 10 minutes left, he had eliminated Kaffer's advantage and pulled off a class-winning overtake.

Luhr lost third when he ran deep in the closing minutes, allowing both Garcia and Frederic Makowiecki's #911 Porsche through.

The sister #912 car hit trouble at the first corner of the race, when Richard Lietz found himself squeezed between the #4 Corvette of Oliver Gavin and the outside wall, sustaining damage to the front-right corner of his car.

RESULTS - 78 LAPS:

Pos Class Driver Team Car Gap
1 P R.Taylor, J.Taylor Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette/Chevrolet 1h40m59.571s
2 P J.Hand, S.Pruett Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Riley/Ford 3.300s
3 P R.Westbrook, M.Valiante visitflorida.com Racing Corvette/Chevrolet 18.242s
4 P E.Curran, D.Cameron Action Express Racing Corvette/Chevrolet 21.864s
5 P J.Barbosa, C.Fittipaldi Action Express Racing Corvette/Chevrolet 50.468s
6 P J.Pew, O.Negri Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Ligier/HPD 2 Laps
7 GTLM B.Auberlen, D.Werner BMW Team RLL BMW 2 Laps
8 GTLM P.Kaffer, G.Fisichella Risi Competizione Ferrari 2 Laps
9 GTLM J.Magnussen, A.Garcia Corvette Racing Chevrolet 3 Laps
10 GTLM P.Pilet, F.Makowiecki Porsche North America Porsche 3 Laps
11 GTLM J.M.Edwards, L.Luhr BMW Team RLL BMW 3 Laps
12 GTLM B.Sellers, W.Henzler Team Falken Tire Porsche 3 Laps
13 P T.Long, J.Miller Speedsource Mazda 3 Laps
14 GTLM O.Gavin, T.Milner Corvette Racing Chevrolet 4 Laps
15 P T.Nunez, J.Bomarito Speedsource Mazda 4 Laps
16 GTLM R.Lietz, J.Bergmeister Porsche North America Porsche 18 Laps
17 P M.Rojas, K.Legge Claro / TracFone DeltaWing Racing DeltaWing/Elan Not running

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