The end of a year-long undefeated streak for one powerhouse organisation. A battle between two aspiring first-time winners that ended in heartache for both. And at the end, another two-car battle that produced a photo finish and an unlikely outright winner from the Pro-Am category.
Put simply, Race 1 of the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS at Watkins Glen International had it all.
The #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R of Charlie Luck and Jan Heylen won an eventful and turbulent first race at The Glen, taking the chequered flag by less than two-tenths of a second from the #04 CrowdStrike with Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of George Kurtz and Colin Braun.
On a beautiful, but hot summer day in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, ambient temperatures exceeded 32°C, with track temperatures as high as 54°C.
17 cars took the green flag for this seventh round of the 2022 season. Due to a leak in their only fuel cell, the #12 Ian Lacy Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 (Frank Gannett/Drew Staveley) was scratched from this race and the remainder of the weekend.
But as has been the case every Saturday this year, the black #1 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo led them to the green flag, in the hands of pole sitter Michele Beretta. Behind them, Steven Aghakhani in the #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3 got a good jump off the line to grab second place into turn one. Michael Dinan in the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 put his car’s straight-six turbo power to good use, ripping past Aghakhani into the Bus Stop chicane and into second place behind Beretta at the end of the first lap.
The race was neutralised under a Full Course Yellow and subsequent Safety Car for the first time when Utah’s Jeff Burton spun his #191 Zelus Motorsports Lamborghini around at turn seven. It was a brief interruption, and the race restarted on lap four. Dinan’s restart prowess saw him on the tail of the black Lamborghini in the first few corners, but he couldn’t find a way through.
A lap later, the first major drama of the race befell the #3 K-PAX Lamborghini (Misha Goikhberg/Jordan Pepper), which suddenly started slowing through the Esses and eventually stopped at turn seven, causing a second, brief FCY and SC intervention. The K-PAX team tried to diagnose the issue of their green Lamborghini suddenly losing power. After replacing the throttle body, Goikhberg and Pepper returned to the race, and would finish nine laps off the lead.
Another restart ensued, and once again, Beretta was able to hold off Dinan after the first few corners. Behind them, Aghakhani conceded third place as Russell Ward in the #33 Winward Racing AMG GT3 got around the outside of turn eight to take the position away. Ashton Harrison was leading Pro-Am in her #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22, fifth overall ahead of Kurtz.
Then on lap 13, Burton had his second accident of the race – this one a bit more severe, as his black and red Lamborghini wiped out into the armco barrier at the entrance of turn eight. Burton was not injured as he got out of his stricken car. But just hours after he’d crashed his primary chassis in qualifying, the secondary car – meant for use only in GT America sprint compeition – was crashed, leaving Burton and Corey Lewis’ status for tomorrow in jeopardy.
This brought out another FCY/SC combination, and the race restarted on lap 17.
Just as he did on the last two restarts, Dinan in the Turner BMW got a great launch out of turn one, up through the esses. Just as he did on the last two restarts, Beretta in the #1 K-PAX Lamborghini seemed like he’d kept Dinan in his mirrors, blocking down to the inside with Dinan having to dip two wheels in the grass. The two collided in the first part of the Bus Stop, with Beretta pushing Dinan off the track.
Ward, who restarted from third, took advantage of the contact ahead of them and seized the race lead, while Beretta dropped to second and slipped into the clutches of Aghakhani, and Dinan fell to fifth.
Just as the pit window opened, Race Control came down with the announcement: Car #1 was given a 60 second stop and hold penalty for incident responsibility.
It didn’t matter that they initially thought it was a drive-through penalty due to a miscommunication, before eventually serving the penalty. After 11 races undefeated across GT World Challenge America and the Intercontinental GT Challenge, K-PAX’s streak – that began at Watkins Glen in 2021 – was over, and the black #1 Lamborghini that hadn’t lost a race throughout all of 2022 was now out of contention. Andrea Caldarelli would take the car home to 14th overall and fourth in class.
Aghakhani pitted on lap 19, and Loris Spinelli took over the wheel of the #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3. One lap later, Ward came in, and Philip Ellis got on board the #33 Winward AMG GT3. It was looking good for Ellis to take over with the net lead of the race, but because of an issue securing the left front wheel, it was Spinelli who was able to seize the net lead.
With 40 minutes of racing left, Spinelli led with Ellis in second, less than two seconds behind. And the two young professional drivers would come out swinging, trading fastest laps of the race on every lap. Sometimes they were within tenths of each other. Sometimes, they were within three-thousandths of each other’s pace. It was a mesmerizing display of driving at the front of the field, but lap over lap, Ellis was slowly reeling Spinelli in.
Mario Farnbacher, meanwhile, had boarded the #93 Racers Edge NSX and, running third overall with a seven second lead in class, was coasting to the victory. But on lap 33, with just under 25 minutes left, the red and silver Acura suffered a burst left front tyre and limped back to the pits. They would eventually finish 13th.
The fight for the Pro-Am class win was now between Heylen and Braun, who were now within a second of one another.
Ellis continued to close in on Spinelli, lap after lap, until he was within a second of the overall lead. After missing the last two meetings of the season, Winward Racing were closing in on a victory.
On lap 38, with 15 minutes left in the race, the left front tyre of the #33 Winward AMG GT3 burst. It was a gut-wrenching blow for the Winward team, who dropped out of the fight for the win. Surely now, with Ellis pitting for emergency service, Loris Spinelli – after so many near misses already this season for US Racetronics – would finally be able to bring the car home and claim the team’s first win of the season.
And then, less than ten minutes later, the same sick joke played out again. Yet another left front tyre issue brought the #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3 to a crawl, and into the pits for emergency service. All Spinelli could do was watch from the cockpit as victory slipped from his and Aghakhani’s grasp, as the two new leaders streaked past him down the front stretch.
With three laps left, Jan Heylen was now leading Colin Braun by half a second. Their battle wasn’t just for the class win – it was for the outright victory, between two of the very best in North American sports car racing.
Braun, the former NASCAR prospect turned prototype racing specialist, was giving everything he could to Heylen, the Belgian driver who came to America to race open-wheelers and found his niche in GT racing. They were running tail-to-nose over the final three laps. Braun gave it everything he could all the way to the final corner, but Heylen had just enough left to hold on and take the chequered flag by just 0.179 seconds!
You’ll have to go back to the 2020 season for the last outright victory in GT World Challenge America by a Pro-Am Cup car, but that season was run without a Pro Cup category. To find the last Pro-Am overall victory against all-Pro competition, you have to go back to 2019, when Mike Hedlund and Dane Cameron won at Road America for RealTime Racing.
Heylen may have held on to take the chequered flag. But full credit is due to his co-driver Luck, the 1980s NASCAR journeyman who’s reinvented himself as a serviceable gentleman racer in sports cars after more than three decades away from racing. Luck drove a solid first stint, starting 12th overall, gaining three places on the opening lap, and driving cleanly throughout.
“It was a fun race, it ran the way it should be,” said Heylen after the race. “A lot of pressure from behind, and everybody did a great job. Charlie did a really good first stint, and it feels good to be back on the top step of the podium.”
This was also a big win in terms of a fierce title fight between Wright Motorsports and CrowdStrike/Riley for the Pro-Am championships. After seven races, Luck and Heylen now trail Kurtz and Braun by just six points.
In third overall, the Turner BMW plugged right along after their incident with Beretta earlier in the race. Robby Foley steered clear of the carnage that unfolded in front of him, and Turner Motorsport got their first Pro Cup victory of 2022 with the new BMW M4 GT3.
“In the moment, you’re just trying to be calm and do your job for the last couple laps,” Foley said after securing the class win. “We had some vibrations in the car that were building, and I was worried because a couple cars had issues. I just backed it down, tried to stay off the curbs, and bring it home. We didn’t have the ultimate pace today, but Michael did a great job to mix it up at the start like he always does.”
Another outstanding story of the race was RealTime Racing. Because of a collision during Race 2 at VIRginia International Raceway, Erin Vogel had to start 17th and last today due to a ten-place grid penalty. But, aboard the #43 RealTime NSX, Vogel quickly shot through the field, up to ninth place by the end of her stint.
Michael Cooper took over until the end and brought it home to a fourth place overall finish, good enough for third place points in Pro-Am – the first podium of the season for the legendary stalwarts of GT World Challenge America and its predecessors.
DXDT Racing brought their cars home fifth and sixth, with the #63 USALCO AMG GT3 (David Askew/Dirk Mueller) ahead of the #08 Qelo Capital AMG GT3 (Scott Smithson/Bryan Sellers). This came despite the #08 car losing its cooling system during the race. The #13 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 (Justin Wetherill/Ryan Dalziel), pieced together with spares after a crash in the GT America race hours earlier, came home seventh overall.
While they received second and third place points in Pro Cup, the #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3 and #33 Winward Racing AMG GT3 surely feel that an outright victory had eluded them both on this day. Eighth and ninth overall, respectively, wasn’t where they’d hoped to finish.
Rounding out the overall top ten was the #23 Triarsi Ferrari (Onofrio Triarsi/Charlie Scardina), the only Am Cup entry in the field this weekend. They finished ahead of the #94 BimmerWorld M4 GT3 (Chandler Hull/Bill Auberlen), which also had a tyre issue that knocked them out of the points – after they’d already fought back from sustaining damage to the boot lid.
Despite virtually no practice apart from qualifying, the #00 Team Hardpoint Porsche (PJ Hyett/Gunnar Jeannette) finished 12th, and Hyett even got to lead a few laps by going long on his opening stint.
The weekend concludes with GT World Challenge America Race 2 at Watkins Glen. Coverage starts at 1:00 PM EDT (local time) and the race is scheduled to start at 1:15 PM.
Feature image © Brian Cleary / SRO Motorsports Group America
