24 hours after a historic maiden victory at Circuit of the Americas, the #63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alec Udell and Tommy Milner capped off a perfect weekend with an overall win in GT World Challenge Race 2 on Sunday.
Neil Verhagen won the pole position for Sunday’s 90-minute race and started on the inside of an all-BMW front row, with Verhagen in the #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 lined up alongside Robby Foley in the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW. Verhagen held the lead into turn one, but Foley took the lead soon after at turn 12.
Behind them, the #08 DXDT Corvette of Bryan Sellers suffered a right-front puncture and dropped out of contention, and the #8 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Andy Lee got spun out after tangling with the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 of Zach Veach. No Safety Car was deployed despite the incidents and the race ran under green to the finish.
Foley and Verhagen ran first and second throughout the opening stint, with the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Colin Braun just a few seconds behind them in third, and Elliott Skeer leading the Pro class in the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The #29, #38, and #04 entered the pits just before the 50-minute maximum drive time had run out for their Pro drivers. They exited the pits in the same order – with rookie Justin Rothberg leading for Turner Motorsport, ahead of Samantha Tan and George Kurtz. Tan put her relative GT3 experience to work, keeping the pressure on Rothberg and then diving up the inside of turn 16 to take the overall lead with 32 minutes remaining.
Behind them, the #120 Wright Porsche of Adam Adelson and #63 DXDT Corvette of Udell were running tail-to-nose after pit stops, and both drivers cleared Kurtz for third and fourth place overall. Soon they cleared Rothberg – leaving Tan as the only car left to catch.
Tan fought as hard as she could – aiming for her first overall win in GT World Challenge America – but ultimately Udell was able to find his way through at turn 20 and took the overall lead with 20 minutes left. Then, Adelson put the pressure on for second place, and took the position with less than five minutes left.
But by this time, Udell had a lead of nearly five seconds, and he was able to coast to the chequered flag after 43 laps of racing under the hot Texas sun.
“This is going to take a little while to set in,” exclaimed DXDT Racing Team Principal, David Askew. “The team executed flawlessly and very well. The cars were awesome. The drivers love them. It’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of time put into this to get this result. I just need to think about it for a while with what we’ve done.
“I’m sort of a cautious person by nature, so I’m still thinking to myself that we still need to keep our head down, continue to do hard work and not take too many victory laps just yet. It’s a long season here. I expect to be racing these cars for a while, so for me, it’s only the beginning.”
Adelson and Skeer finished second overall and in the Pro class, enough to extend their Pro championship lead to 26 points after six races, over the #28 ST Racing BMW (Varun Choksey/Bill Auberlen), which finished sixth overall on Sunday and third in class in both races.
ST Racing fell short of the overall victory in third, but Tan and her co-driver Verhagen were more than satisfied with a Pro-Am class sweep, their third Pro-Am win in the last four races. “There was a lot of motivation today,” a fiery Tan said after the race.
“I’ve been getting a lot of hate comments on social media – I was digging deep, I was tired of being told I’m not good enough. I know I have the skills and I’m out there to show it!”
Rothberg and Foley finished fourth overall for Turner Motorsport, while the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes of Kurtz and Braun finished fifth overall to round out the Pro-Am podium. Heading out of COTA, Tan and Verhagen lead the Pro-Am championship table by 18 points over Kurtz and Braun; Rothberg and Foley sit only a further ten points back in third.
The #93 Racers Edge Acura of Veach and Luca Mars finished seventh to round out the Pro class, ahead of the #85 RS1 Porsche (Jake Pedersen/Trent Hindman), the #50 Chouest Povoledo Racing Mercedes (Ross Chouest/Aaron Povoledo), and the #88 AF Corse USA Ferrari 296 GT3 (Riccardo Agostini/Custodio Toledo), rounding out the top ten.
Philip Ellis set the fastest lap of the race in the #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes, but he and Jeff Burton missed out on a bigger result after Burton came in so early, that the Regulator Racing team had to make a longer pit stop in order for Ellis not to exceed his maximum 50 minutes once he got in the car. They finished 12th overall and eighth in class.
GT World Challenge America and SRO Motorsports America head to VIRginia International Raceway for the next race meeting on 19-21 July.
Feature image © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
