Muscle Milk Pickett racing took the race win and the Championship title in P1 in yesterday’s incident packed Grand Prix of Baltimore but the headlines will surely go to the first ten seconds of the race which saw a multi-car incident eliminate five cars from the race.
In a complex incident it seemed that Chris Dyson got the power in too early, crossing the start line before polesitter Graf, that led to a confused field behind with some cars getting the hammer down, following Dyson’s lead whilst others were checked up behind the (correctly) paced HPD.
The major incident though was triggered by contact to the rear of Scott Tucker’s Level 5 P2 polesitting #551 HPD and the similar car of ESM returnee Anthony Lazzaro, the #01 car dealing a hefty nerf to the class leader as he checked up behind Graf, the impact launched Tucker into the wall, the car spinning to face the, by now, fast oncoming GT pack, Tom Kimber Smith and Scott Tucker lucky to escape serious injury as the Core Porsche impacted the HPD flat in fourth gear!
The Falken and Paul Miler Porsches and the Risi Ferrari were also eliminated from the restart with the GTC field thankfully able to check up before the crash site.
Dyson was judged to have jumped the start and received a stop-go with Lazarro punished with a stop and 60 second hold far his part in the chaos.
From there on in it was almost a Muscle Milk benefit from the front but a further incident involving the Ed Brown pedalled ESM HPD almost played a critical part.
The ESM team owner impacted the temporary chicane on the front straight and again the entire field behind lost momentum. Biggest loser was the GT leader, Dirk Muller passed by both factory Corvettes with Magnussen and Milner (M&M?) completing the final quarter hour or so unchallenged to a 1,2 finish with the #56 Z4 coming home third.
Guy Smith meanwhile had taken advantage of Lucas Luhr’s cautious approach in the accident zone and went through to lead the race before the German recovered to blow by the Lola Mazda before the flag dropped.
The surviving #552Level 5 HPD completed the overall podium with team newcomer Guy Cosmo having driven beautifully, leading overall at times and assisting Marino Franchitti to another P2 top points haul for the men in black.
Second in P2 went to the #01 ESM HPD of Lazzaro and Scott Sharp.
The Performance Tech Oreca of Tristan Nunez and Charlie Shears took the win in PC after something of a fumble by Core Autosport saw the team need ing to put Jon Bennett back into the car right at the death, the team owner having not by then completed the required minimum driving time for points scoring!
The then leading #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car looked set to cruise to the class win but almost immediately Dane Cameron was out, the FLM 09 having suffered a mot unusual suspension failure!
There was a little bit of ALMS history in GTC as Seth Neiman, a long time supporter of the Series, took his first win, the Flying Lizards team owner sharing the top step of the podium with Dion von Moltke who had fended off none other than Jeroen Bleekemolen in the closing stages of the race.
Behind that hard charging pairing was another, Jan Heylen and Sean Edwards bumping and barging their way to the flag in the #11 JDX Racing and #30 NGT Motorsports car respectively – Heylen came out on top and completed the podium
All in all then a race with more spills than racing thrills, a real street fight with some moments to savour but there were just too many car damaging incidents, and too little time on track, to count this anywhere close to a classic.
