Monday, April 27, 1998 | 9:28 a.m.
Wayne Taylor came to Las Vegas looking to grab the lead in the World Sports Car standings.
He left with much more Sunday.
Taylor not only took over first place in the Professional Sports Car WSC drivers standings by winning the Toshiba Copiers & Fax Nevada Grand Prix at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the South African native came away with a new-found respect for his fellow competitors.
During a late-race caution period on the 2.55-mile road course, Taylor's co-driver, Eric van de Poele, gave up the race lead and came into the pits for fuel, tires and a driver change.
Taylor hopped into the bright red Ferrari 333SP for the final 35 minutes of the 3-hour, 45-minute race, but was beaten out of the pits by Eric Bernard -- a Panoz Motor Sports teammate of race leader David Brabham.
Bernard, running 28 laps off the lead at the time, was in perfect position to block Taylor's late-race charge at Brabham, but made no such moves. Taylor passed Bernard on the first lap after the race went back to green, overtook Brabham on the following lap and held on for a four-tenths of a second victory over Brabham.
"I was going ballistic," Taylor said of being beaten out of the pits by Bernard. "I was worried that he was going to hold me up but as professional as those guys are, they didn't -- there was absolutely no problem.
"It was really an unbelievable race. The best part of this race was the professionalism of all the other drivers. Those guys with the Panoz ... you could pull moves in the absolute no-man's zone and they wouldn't bump, they wouldn't balk. This was a brilliant race."
Brilliant, perhaps. Exciting, for sure. But one that was witnessed by fewer than 500 fans.
While Taylor and van de Poele took the overall title and first in class in WSC, Brabham and co-driver Andy Wallace took second overall and first in class in GT1. Bill Auberlen and Andy Pilgrim captured the GT2 class and Mark Simo, Marc Duez and Auberlen won GT3.
Dale White of Las Vegas and Don Kitch of Seattle, Wash., drove local car owner Mike Petersen's Westward Ho Hotel & Casino Porsche 911 RSR to a 14th-place finish overall, eighth in the eight-car GT3 class.
"The car ran great ... this is our second race and we just want to get as much seat time as we can trying to get ready for the 24 Hours of Daytona," White said. "This is not something you just jump in and try to beat everybody. We're happy to be out here with some of the big-name drivers and we're learning."
Shane Donley of Las Vegas and Kris Wilson of Newport Beach, Calif., experienced a rear suspension problem early in the race and finished 17th overall and fifth in the WSC class.
John Jernigan Jr. won Sunday's companion race, a 30-minute event for Sports Toyota Racers.
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