IMSA gets winner-take-all championship after Road America

Updated Aug. 7, 2022 4:37 p.m. ET

Associated Press

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (AP) — Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor won their fourth race of the year Sunday and head into the IMSA season finale in a winner-take-all fight between Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing for the sports car championship.

It's the second consecutive year the No. 10 from WTR has gone to the season-ending Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta with the Daytona prototype championship in reach. They fell short by 11 points last season.

Albuquerque started the 2-hour, 40-minute race from the pole, had to work his way back to the lead later and was jostling with Oliver Jarvis of Shank for the win. But Jarvis attempted to pick his way through slower traffic to retake the lead with under 10 minutes to go and ran wide in the track’s famed, high-speed kink and slammed the wall on the exit.

The crash brought out a full-course caution and the race was not restarted.

The win moved WTR back atop the point standings; Albuquerque and Taylor hold a 19-point lead over Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist in the Dpi class. The championship will be decided at Road Atlanta in October.

Taylor and Albuquerque entered the season finale last year with a 19-point lead over Action Express Racing. But it was a head-to-head fight to decide the title and Action Express won the championship by finishing second.

Other Road America winners on Sunday: Ryan Dalziel and Dwight Merriman won in the LMP2 class for Era Motorsport, Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga won LMP3 for Riley Motorsports, Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat won GTD Pro for Vasser Sullivan, and Russell Ward and Philip Ellis won GTD for Winward Racing.

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