Bryan Heitkotter drove faultlessly once again at Utah Motorsports Campus, taking a comfortable Race 2 win, his second of the season and his PWC career. The American Always Evolving driver mimicked his Race 1 performance, by taking the lead of the race at the start, getting past pole-sitter Michael Lewis who set the fastest race lap on Saturday.
From there on in it was plain sailing for Heitkotter and the #05 Nissan GT-R GT3 crew, as he managed to withstand pressure from Adderly Fong’s Absolute Racing Bentley which climbed to second on Lap 2 and finished just ahead of Patrick Long’s Wright Motorsports Porsche which came home in the final podium spot.
“The car was so good yesterday we made no changes because the conditions were the same,” commented Heitkotter. “It’s a really good feeling to win two in a row. The GT-R is a beast at the start of races, it enabled me to pull a gap right away.”
Through traffic towards the end of the race, Fong lost out and slipped into the clutches of Long who had had a quiet outing to that point. But the American Porsche factory driver couldn’t make anything stick and finished the race bumper-to-bumper with the Continental GT3 ahead.
Just off the podium in fourth was Long’s former EFFORT Racing teammate Michael Lewis, with Jon Fogarty in the the first of the four McLarens rounding out the top five.
Very little happened in the GT class following the opening scramble, with the only major occurrence being Ryan Eversley spinning off the circuit with 12 minutes left while running fifth in his RealTime Acura; he consequently retired from the race.
For K-PAX Racing’s Alvaro Parente, his disastrous debut outing at Utah continued. The Portuguese McLaren GT factory star finished the race a lowly 11th place after starting at the back of the field following his retirement in Race 1. He struggled with engine temperatures throughout, and failed to make up much ground, allowing Long to take the championship lead.
In GTA, Martin Fuentes’ Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 took the win by the smallest of margins over Michael Schein’s Wright Motorsports Porsche after Race 1-winner Frankie Montecalvo had a costly spin from the lead which dropped him to fourth behind Brent Holden.
GT Cup saw the GMG Porsche of Alec Udell take the win after he got past McKay Snow with 20 minutes remaining. Snow finished up second despite having the place snatched from him by Sloan Urry right after Udell went by’ though, as Urry retired from the race in the final laps after an off.
Next up on the PWC calendar is the trip to Sonoma on the 16-18th of September.
