Last year, BMW Motorsport formally unveiled the second-generation M4 GT4 during Pirelli GT4 America’s visit to VIRginia International Raceway. Fittingly, in the G82 M4’s first race at VIR, BMW customer teams swept up every win in every class across two races over this past weekend.
Race 1 on Saturday saw the #92 Random Vandals Racing BMW of Kevin Boehm and Kenton Koch take a thrilling overall win ahead of the #51 AutoTechnic Racing BMW of Zac Anderson and John Capestro-Dubets.
Polesitter Anderson was pushing to the limit and beyond to keep Boehm in check during the opening stint, going off in the dirt at the Esses while Boehm did the same. After pit stops, “JCD” continued to lead over Koch, who was coming off an overall win in GT World Challenge America Race 1 just minutes before the start of this race.
With about 12 minutes left to run, Koch saw an opportunity to get around Capestro-Dubets, positioning his car around the outside of turns two, three, and four so he could get the preferred line as the track twisted the other way.
Koch held on even as Capestro-Dubets put a bumper to his rear fender on the penultimate lap. A race-long battle between these two teams came down to a close finish, and the #92 BMW of Koch and Boehm held on for its first overall and Silver class win of the season, just a quarter of a second ahead of the #51 of Anderson and Capestro-Dubets.
With the win, Koch won overall in two races in the same afternoon – in GT3 and GT4 machinery, representing two different German manufacturers.
BMW locked out the top four thanks to the two cars from Virginia’s very own BimmerWorld Racing team.
The #82 of James Walker Jnr and Tyler McQuarrie finished third overall and won the Pro-Am class. Walker and McQuarrie were seldom challenged by the rest of the Pro-Am field behind them en route to their first class win of the year.
And the Am class win, and a surprising fourth overall, went to the #36 BMW of defending series champions Charlie Postins and BimmerWorld founder James Clay.
The #47 NOLASPORT Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport (Matt Travis/Jason Hart) finished fifth overall and second in Pro-Am, and was in fact the only car that stood between BMW customer teams sweeping the podium in all three classes of GT4 America!
That’s because the #88 STR38 Motorsports BMW (Harry Gottsacker/Chandler Hull) came through to finish sixth overall and third in the Silver class, ahead of the #44 Rooster Hall Racing BMW (Johan Schwartz/Colin Garrett) which was third in Pro-Am, and the #438 STR38 BMW (Robert Mau/Chris Allen), second in Am.
Completing the overall top ten from Race 1 were two non-BMW runners – the #74 Copeland Motorsports Toyota GR Supra GT4 (Tyler Maxson/Tyler Gonzalez) and the #19 ACI Motorsports Porsche (Francis Selldorff/Andrew Davis).
The final Am podium position went to the #98 Random Vandals BMW (Paul Sparta/Al Carter) in 14th overall.
Of note from this race, the #24 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 had to be scratched from the field – because Gray Newell had been given enough penalty points after an incident in the GT America race earlier that day to trigger a two-race suspension. Newell and co-driver Roman de Angelis would return for Race 2 the next day, finishing 20th overall.
This is Newell’s second suspension in the last calendar year after he was barred from the entire Sebring weekend for causing a significant crash in a GT America race at Road America – of which Newell came out worst of all. It stands to reason that, given his family’s track record in the video game industry – many would be very surprised if this phenomenon happened for a third time.
Anderson and JCD may have lost out in Race 1, but the next day, they earned their redemption as the #51 AutoTechnic BMW won in Race 2 – which was, unfortunately, blighted by Safety Car interventions.
A crash between the #22 TechSport Racing Nissan Z GT4 of Eric Powell and the #37 Skip Barber Racing School Toyota of Carter Fartuch brought out the first Safety Car, and barrier repairs ensured that the first half of the race would be run under a full-course yellow.
When the Safety Car was withdrawn, the pit window opened and every green flag lap became crucial. In a reversal of Race 1, it was AutoTechnic’s Anderson who bumped past Random Vandals’ Boehm at the Left Hook (turn four) to drive into the lead.
Boehm stuck with Anderson, but with ten minutes left, the Safety Car was brought out again after a collision between the #44 Rooster Hall BMW of Schwartz and the #47 NOLASPORT Porsche of Travis left the BMW stranded off in the Snake complex with a busted left-front suspension.
The race ended under the Safety Car, and the #51 AutoTechnic BMW of Anderson and Capestro-Dubets took its third overall and Silver class win of the season. Boehm and Koch finished a close second to complete their best weekend of the year to date.
The #34 Conquest Racing/JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Jesse Webb/Michai Stephens) recovered from an off-track moment in Race 1 to finish third overall and complete the Silver class podium, ahead of the #88 STR38 BMW of Gottsacker and Hull.
BimmerWorld completed its sweep of the Am and Pro-Am classes in Race 2, as Clay and Postins finished fifth overall in the #36, giving the defending champions their third Am class win in a row and their fourth of the year.
They finished ahead of the #82 of Walker Jnr and McQuarrie which swept Pro-Am.
The rest of the overall top ten featured the Pro-Am #7 ACI Motorsports Porsche (Curt Swearingin/Kay van Berlo) and the #50 Chouest Povoledo Motorsports Aston Martin (Ross Chouest/Aaron Povoledo), followed by the #19 ACI Motorsports Porsche in ninth. The #438 STR38 BMW of Mau and Allen finished tenth overall and was second in the Am class, ahead of the #72 KRUGSPEED Toyota (Anthony Geraci/Jaden Lander), which finished 13th overall and rounded out the Am podium.
One other major storyline from the weekend involved a team that went from taking a double pole position to packing up and heading home before the first race.
On Friday, the #999 Hanley Motorsports Toyota GR Supra GT4 suffered a practice crash which ruled Daniel Hanley out for the weekend, as well as the team’s primary car. Parker Thompson would therefore run the race on his own as team owner Robert Hanley prepared a backup car.
Hanley Snr went on the record to say that because of a logistical problem getting the required data logger into the backup car before the start of Qualifying, he was given a verbal agreement from a series official to run without that equipment under force majeure.
Thompson qualified for both races in pole position, but minutes after Qualifying was completed, the #999 Toyota had all of its times deleted for running out of compliance. Hanley Snr, in response to what he said was a betrayal of the verbal agreement between himself and the series, withdrew his team from the rest of the weekend in protest.
This is the second weekend in a row where a GT4 America competitor has withdrawn amidst a rift with the series. At Circuit of the Americas, Todd Coleman of Archangel Motorsports pulled out for the weekend and declared on social media that he would not return to the series, in response to a new “success weight” requirement for cars with a Gold-graded driver.
GT4 America will return in two months’ time to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, for another double-header race weekend.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group America
