The #68 Smooge Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 of Tyler Gonzalez and Corey Lewis took victory in GT4 America Race 1 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday morning.
Gonzalez worked his way up to second after polesitter Matheus Leist dropped from first to third in his #89 RENNtech Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4. Kay van Berlo took the early lead in the Pro-Am #7 ACI Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 and held that advantage through the entirety of his opening stint.
But Gonzalez stayed close to Van Berlo and put Lewis in a good position to make a move for the overall victory after pit stops were complete.
Lewis initially came out third behind the #7 ACI Porsche of Curt Swearingin and the #89 RENNtech Mercedes-AMG of Michael Auriemma, but the #68 Toyota came charging through, and with 15 minutes left, Lewis drove past Swearingin at turn four to take the overall lead.
As Smooge Racing took its first win since the opening race at Sonoma, attention turned to the battle for second in the Silver class between the top two teams in the championship.
Eric Filgueiras in the #28 RS1 Porsche was in a fierce fight with Kenton Koch in the #97 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 for class position. Filgueiras slipped off course at turn ten, just enough for Koch to seize the opportunity and grab the position with 11 minutes left.
They followed each other into second and third places overall but Koch was able to stay ahead and take second place alongside co-driver Kevin Boehm, while Filgueiras and John Capestro-Dubets finished third.
Filgueiras and Capestro-Dubets now lead by just four points over Boehm and Koch as a winner-take-all championship showdown is set for Sunday morning.
In Pro-Am, the #07 Precision Racing LA Toyota of Terry Borcheller and Ryan Eversley made a stunning comeback drive for its first win of the season, finishing fourth overall.
Borcheller ran a strong opening stint of his own, but even so, Eversley was about 18 seconds back of the class leader at the start of his stint.
Eversley then went on an inspired charge in the last eight minutes of the race, passing Auriemma for second in Pro-Am, and then with less than three minutes left, Eversley swung up the inside of Swearingin to grab the position and cruise to a popular first win of the year for the team and its two drivers.
Despite losing out on the victory, ACI’s Swearingin and Van Berlo did enough with their fifth-place overall result to clinch the 2024 Pro-Am championship, a fantastic result for the team based in Chattanooga.
Their path to the title was cleared when the #24 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT4 (Gray Newell/Roman de Angelis) suffered a problem with the right-front tyre, making them come to the pits for an unscheduled stop. Newell and De Angelis entered the weekend as the only drivers capable of upsetting Swearingin and Van Berlo in the standings.
Sixth overall and third in Pro-Am was the debuting #098 Rotek Racing Porsche of Isaac Sherman, the new GT America GT4 champion, and Indy NXT prospect Myles Rowe, who showed great form on his sports car racing debut.
The #77 VPX Motorsports Porsche (Danny Dyszelski/Cayden Goodridge) finished a strong seventh, ahead of Auriemma and Leist in the #89 RENNtech Mercedes. The #94 Random Vandals BMW (Sam Craven/Josh Green) was ninth, followed by the #51 AutoTechnic Racing BMW (Colin Garrett/Zac Anderson), which recovered from 30th on the grid to finish tenth – but fell out of contention for the Silver championships.
Meanwhile, the Am championship will also go to the final round as the #099 Rotek Racing Porsche of Robb Holland and Jaden Lander won the class (13th overall), from the #72 KRUGSPEED Toyota (Anthony Geraci/Kevin Conway) and the #98 Random Vandals BMW (Michael Kanisczak/Kris Wilson).
Holland and Lander are now seven points ahead of Wilson going into the final race on Sunday, and with their fourth Am class win in the last six rounds, they’ve also got the potential championship tiebreaker in hand.
Images © Fred Hardy III / SRO Motorsports America
