For the bluegrass musician of the same name, see Blue Highway
Wayne Taylor (born 15 July 1956 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa) is a South African sports car racing driver and team owner. He won the 1996 and 2005 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 2005 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype drivers' championship. He drove for SunTrust Racing with Max Angelelli. He co-drove in the 2006 International Race of Champions in the United States with Angelelli. Taylor now owns and manages his own team competing in the Rolex Sports Car Series.
Racing career:
He won the 1986 South African National Drivers Championship. In 1987 he finished fourth in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He moved to the FIA World Sportscar Championship. He competed in the C2 class in 1988, and moved to the C1 class in 1989. He also competed in the IMSA GT Camel series in 1989, 1990, and 1991. He moved to IMSA's Camel Lights series in 1992, and the Camel GTP series in 1993.
He won the IMSA WSC class in 1994, with second place finishes in the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.
He was once more IMSA WSC champion in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. In 1998 he won the Petit Le Mans and the prototype class in the 24 Hours of Daytona.
He competed in the American Le Mans Series in 1999. From 2000 to 2002, he was a central part of the Cadillac Le Mans effort. It was handled by his long-time technical partner in 2000 Bob Riley before the chassis program was moved in England and an updated car was built for 2001, followed by a completely new car, the LMP-02, in 2002. Unfortunately, it was not successful against Audi's R8 and even privately entered LMPs, so GM discontinued the program at the end of the year. Taylor tried to secure funding to run a privateer effort with the car, but instead eventually continued with Cadillac in the Speed World Challenge CTS-V effort.
With Max Angelelli, he was co-champion in the Daytona Prototype category of the 2005 Grand American Road Racing Association Rolex Sports Car Series, and the pair also took the overall win in the 24 Hours of Daytona.
In 2006, Wayne and his Grand-Am teammate, Max Angelelli made IROC Series history becoming the first tandem of drivers to compete in one car during an IROC season. They each raced two races and points were combined for their tally as they are in the sportscar series.
In mid-2006, Taylor announced a split with car builder Bob Riley and formed Wayne Taylor Racing for the 2007 season with continued backing from SunTrust, and Angelelli as co-driver. The team is based in Indianapolis. Early in 2007, Taylor stepped away from full-time driving and used a host of fill in drivers before naming Michael Valiante to team up with Angelelli full-time in 2008. Taylor continues to drive in the long distance events. The team continued to field Riley Chassis in 2007 before switching to the new Dallara chassis after the 2008 24 Hours of Daytona. In May 2008, the team's transporter caught fire and destroyed it, the new Dallara and all of their equipment. The team fielded their old Riley with borrowed equipment until a new Dallara could be built and shipped to the US. On August 23, the team scored their first win of the year and the first for Dallara in Grand-Am at Infinion Raceway California.
