Billy Johnson, driving the No. 61 Roush Performance Mustang Boss 302R, led the final 18 laps to win Friday’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series BMW Performance 200. Johnson’s victory with teammate Jack Roush Jr. gave Roush’s father, team owner Jack Roush, his first GRAND-AM victory at Daytona International Speedway.The margin of victory over second-place Charles Espenlaub in the No. 48 Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3 *was 1.061 seconds. Espenlaub’s teammate Bryan Sellers was third in the No. 46 BMW. Twenty-five of the race’s 58 laps were run under a total of six caution flags. The race began on a wet surface, which dried as proceedings progressed. And in the end, things played in the Roush team’s favor.
“I think pretty much the first hour and a half was a close moment,” Roush Jr. said of the racing. “There’s opportunities to have incidents at any moment in time, especially at the beginning of the race, it was really sketchy.” Roush also talked about his relief of finally finding success at Daytona. “My sense of joy is getting out of here in one piece and getting a good start to the year. We did not have much luck here the last two years.”
“It’s great to finish this race first, especially after not being able to finish in the last two years,” Johnson said. “To come back and have a strong finish and start off the season on a good note rather than a hole with zero points is huge.”
Johnson, who had taken the lead on lap 41, held the point through the race’s sixth caution on lap 53, and persevered over the final three laps.
The next Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race will be at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama on March 30-31.
You can see an interview with Jack Roush Jr. after the race in the video below.
