2009 News

Dalziel Scores Daytona Podium on Grand-Am Return

05 July 2009

Orlando, Florida (July 05, 2009) – Ryan Dalziel celebrated his return to Daytona Prototype racing in the 2009 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Presented by Crown Royal Cask No.16 with a third place podium finish in Saturday’s ‘Brumos Porsche 250’ at the Daytona International Speedway, Florida, 4th July.

The 27-year-old Scotsman, making just his third start in the category this season and first driving Orbit Racing’s #45 BMW-Riley Daytona Prototype, shared his top-three finish alongside team-mate Bill Lester, who had qualified the car tenth on the grid around the 3.56-mile speedway road course the previous day.

Lester, from Washington D.C., took the start of Saturday’s 250-mile endurance sprint and maintained a front-running pace throughout his 35- minute stint behind the wheel. Sitting eighth, Lester pitted to hand over to Dalziel for the remainder of the race. Despite losing some time in the changeover, with Ryan joining in 13th overall, the Orlando-based racer soon demonstrated his sports car prowess, quickly climbing back up the order.

The Scot took the #45 entry as high as second behind the #99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing car, shared by former champions Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney, but both cars got caught out on the final yellow caution period, dropping to sixth and eighth respectively.

Dalziel’s ‘never say die’ attitude came to the fore once again and he powered his way back to the lead pack with another spirited performance to claim third after 70-laps behind the aforementioned #99, in second, and the winning #10 SunTrust Racing entry, shared by Max Angelelli an Brian Frisselle.

Commenting after a successful return to Daytona Prototype’s Dalziel said:

“Put simply it was a close to perfect start to my new venture with Orbit Racing, we all needed this result. Now we can really focus on pushing for that all important victory before the end of the season. The team gave me a great car with some amazing pit-stops. The Dinan-BMW power was amazing and it feels good to gift BMW their first podium of the year in North America.

“The whole Orbit Racing crew deserved this result as much as me after my miserable season watching from the sidelines. It was pretty emotional but I couldn’t be happier. I’m all set for our next race and hopefully a win now!”

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