Championship leader Alvaro Parente steered his #9 K-PAX Racing McLaren 650S GT3 to his fifth victory of the season, beating his teammate Austin Cindric who started from pole and finished second. Unfortunately though, the 50-minute sprint race suffered from mutiple interruptions due to incidents.
Third place in the race went to Bryan Heitkotter’s AE Nissan, which climbed into the final podium spot, getting past Jon Fogarty’s Gainsco McLaren, preventing a McLaren 1-2-3 in the race.
Cindric held his lead at the start, which saw JD Davison get nudged into a spin after contact from Spencer Pumpelly’s Acura at the bottom of Turn 3 and take a hit from the #82 Viper of Michael McCann and #77 Porsche of Preston Calvert. Adderly Fong’s Bentley also retired on Lap 1 after a gearbox issue.
Thankfully though, all three cars managed to pull away, shortening the caution period to just a few minutes.
When the race went green again, Parente tried to make a move on Cindric for the lead, but just as the pass appeared to be on, the safety car was called upon again for another incident.
This time it was due to Spencer Pumpelly’s Acura hitting Colin Thompson’s seventh-place McLaren at Turn 1 at the start of the second green-flag lap after the previous caution. Pumpelly damaged his Acura, crabbed his way up the hill to Turn 2, and spun into the gravel on the outside.
After the marshalls retreived the stranded Acura, the race went live again and Parente snatched the lead from Cindric on the run into Turn 3 with 45 minutes left.
The green flag running once again didn’t last long though, as yet another safety car period was called after Pat Long hit Colin Thompson into a spin at Turn 2, collecting Kyle Marcelli’s Audi on the exit of the corner, severely damaging both the 650S and R8.
Long would be penalised for the contact, and served a drive-through before the end. It was a bad end to a bad day for Long – who sits second in the points – finishing 10th and letting Parente extend his points lead.
The race wouldn’t get underway again until there was just 32 minutes left on the clock. Thankfully after that mess was cleaned up though, the race would resume and the would stay green until the end.
In that final dash, Heitkotter made his move on Fogarty, which was a bold pass around the outside of the ‘Red Dragon’ at the Turn 2 hairpin.
Up front at by then Parente was trying to create a healthy gap, but slipped back into the clutches of Cindric with 10 minutes to go after leading by a few seconds, getting delayed through traffic.
The positions wouldn’t change though, as the frontrunners all tried to set the best lap times they could to secure good grid positions for Race 2.
Finishing behind Fogarty was Ryan Everlsey’s Acura, with Johnny O’Connell and Michael Cooper’s Cadillacs sixth and seventh.
Michael Cooper’s Wright Motorsport Porsche finished up eighth ahead of the GTA class winning Porsche of Michael Schien in ninth.
Alec Udell won the GT Cup after a lengthy battle with Sloan Urry, the pair running door-to-door at one point.
