An unexpected overall winner emerged from Race 2 of the Pirelli GT4 America series at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday – as the #20 Carrus Callas Raceteam Toyota GR Supra GT4 of Nicholas Shanny and Terry Borcheller, an Am class car, finished first after their Silver class Toyota stablemates at Hanley Motorsports were given a time penalty for a pit stop violation.
It is the first time since GT4 America went to a uniform race structure of 60-minute, two-driver races, that an Am class team won overall. The last time an Am class team took an overall win in the series was back in 2019 at Sonoma when Jeff Burton and Vesko Kozarov won for Rearden Racing – back when GT4 America was split into “East” and “West” regional championships.
Jason Hart started Sunday’s race from pole position in the #47 NOLASPORT Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport that he and Matt Travis drove to the overall win in Race 1. The field was down to just 42 cars for Race 2, as crash damages from Saturday’s race forced the #54 Black Swan Racing McLaren Artura GT4 (Tim Pappas/Jeroen Bleekemolen) to withdraw.
When the race got going, Hart held the early advantage, while a determined Kay van Berlo in the #7 ACI Motorsports Porsche passed the #68 Smooge Racing Toyota of John Geesbreght for second place. As Hart and Van Berlo pulled away, Geesbreght found himself in a battle with the Silver class-leading #34 Conquest Racing/JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Michai Stephens, who had battled past Kenton Koch in the #92 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 for the class lead. Soon, Stephens would find his way past Geesbreght for third place overall.
But in amongst that fight, Borcheller was running sixth overall in the #20 Toyota when the race’s fabric began to disintegrate.
With 38 minutes left, Van Berlo slowed down and stopped at the start/finish line, bringing what hoped to be a great weekend for him and co-driver Curt Swearingin to a disappointing end after their Race 1 technical exclusion. This eventually brought out the first Safety Car intervention of the race and delayed the period when the pit window would be open for driver and tyre changes. The Safety Car was withdrawn with 33 minutes to go. Hart got off to a rocket start as the rest of the leaders were bottled up behind lapped traffic, including the #52 NOLASPORT Porsche of David Peterman.
This caused the field to stack up, and on the ascent out of turn five, the #999 Hanley Motorsports Toyota of Parker Thompson spun Geesbreght around and into the wall, ending his and Kevin Conway’s chances of victory.
Two corners later, Jaden Conwright in the #899 SP Motorsports Porsche tried to get past Peterman, but they made contact, sending them spinning out right into the path of Koch, who had nowhere to go but straight into a collision. Koch and co-driver Kevin Boehm were also knocked out of the race – while Aaron Povoledo in the #50 Chouest Povoledo Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 narrowly escaped contact.
Right as that all kicked off, Race Control opted to open the pit window – but the second multi-car incident caused them to close it off and bring the Safety Car out once more. But by then, a few cars had already committed to coming into the pits. One of those cars was the #999 Hanley Motorsports Toyota of Thompson, who came in to inspect damages and also change drivers to Daniel Hanley – not knowing that the window had just been closed again.
“My engineer Jeff Fickley made a great call – he said, ‘pit window is open’, get in,” Thompson recalled of the pit window confusion. “I didn’t hear anything, so I dove to the pit lane, hit the pit limiter, and all of a sudden we cycled from fifth overall to first.”
Another restart followed with 23 minutes left, and this time the pit window would open at the end of the lap and stay open for nine minutes. Stephens pitted the #34 Mercedes from second overall at the end of the lap. Hart held out for two more laps before he brought the #47 NOLASPORT Porsche in for its stop. That cycled Andy Lee in the #8 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin to the lead for one lap before he came in to pass the baton to Elias Sabo.
Borcheller was now leading by six seconds, while the #37 Skip Barber Racing School Toyota of Carter Fartuch was second, ahead of Povoledo. Further back in the pack, Charlie Postins in the #36 BimmerWorld BMW tried a brave three-wide pass up the inside of Todd Coleman’s #69 Archangel Motorsports Aston Martin. Coleman collided with Postins, which sent Postins spinning off to the left. The BMW pivoted off the front of Roland Krainz’ #18 RS1 Porsche, and Postins hit the barrier head on, taking Krainz with him. Thankfully, both drivers were not hurt.
Borcheller was able to enter the pits just before the Safety Car was deployed for the third and final time. As the minutes and laps ticked down under the Safety Car, the realisation slowly set in that the #999 Toyota hadn’t pitted within the prescribed window – and that the #20 Toyota, now in the hands of travel agency co-founder and second-year GT4 driver Shanny, was going to take the overall win.
“As far as strategy goes, it really worked out in our favor,” said the two-time Daytona 24 Hours winner Borcheller. “The combination of the timing of our pit stop and the green running I had played out perfectly.”
“Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re good, and sometimes you’re both, and today we were both!”
The battle for the Pro-Am class win would come down to the Chouest Povoledo Racing crew getting their #50 Aston Martin out of the pits ahead of the #37 Skip Barber Toyota. Povoledo and Ross Chouest finished second overall and took their first class victory of 2023, their second in three races dating back to the 2022 Indianapolis finale. Fartuch and Matt Forbush finished third overall after their pit stops.
“We were so frustrated that we were unable to get a clean lap in qualifying because we knew what this car was capable of,” remarked Povoledo. “I drove my heart out today, and we created a bit of luck for ourselves by working our way up into the right spot. We have to give major credit to this team, our Chouest Povoledo Racing crew is absolutely amazing and this win is dedicated to them.
With a third-place finish in Pro-Am and a fourth-place overall result, Colin Harrison and Eric Powell gave the #22 TechSport Racing Nissan Z GT4 its first podium finish in North American competition, following a second-place finish in the car’s official Super Taikyu Series debut at Suzuka.
And Matt Travis would finish fifth overall for NOLASPORT – whose only fault was executing their strategy perfectly but being caught out by circumstances outside their control.
The Silver class win went to the #34 Conquest/JMF Mercedes of Stephens and Jesse Webb, in sixth overall. Stephens and Webb exited Sonoma with the maximum 50 points available from two races.
“I’m very happy with our results this weekend,” said the rookie Webb. “It was a pretty flawless weekend to be able to take home two wins out of two. We really couldn’t have asked for a better opening round. We’re leading the championship and we’ll be looking to further extend this lead in the next rounds. The team worked extremely hard to get this car on track and get the results that we did. I’m super happy!”
The rest of the overall top ten featured the #8 Flying Lizard Aston Martin of Lee and Elias Sabo, followed by the #51 AutoTechnic Racing BMW (Zac Anderson/John Dubets), and the #88 STR38 Motorsports BMW (Chandler Hull/Jon Miller). The two BMWs finished second and third in the Silver class. The #82 BimmerWorld BMW (James Walker Jnr/Tyler McQuarrie) finished tenth overall.
Rounding out the Am podium, STR38 Motorsports’ #438 BMW driven by Chris Allen and Robert Mau were second in class, followed by the #83 NOLASPORT Porsche of Nelson Calle and Juan Pablo Martinez in third.
The 50-second time penalty given to the #999 Hanley Motorsports Toyota for not pitting at the required window dropped them to 30th out of 39 classified cars.
Images © Brian Cleary / SRO Motorsports America
