Justin Rothberg led wire-to-wire to win GT America Race 1 at Road America, but it was far from a comfortable victory for the Turner Motorsport driver over Jason Daskalos.
Rothberg won the pole for Race 1 this morning in dry conditions, setting a 2:06.019 in his black and blue #29 BMW M4 GT3 – to take the pole over GMG Racing’s James Sofronas.
But minutes before the start of this afternoon’s race, a heavy rain shower rushed in from the north and soaked the circuit. Teams rushed to put wet tyres on, and several teams, including the GMG Racing cars of Sofronas and Kyle Washington, were caught out by the timing – they were two of seven drivers in the 15-car grid that had to serve drive-through penalties for pit lane procedure violations!
Those penalties would have to come after 12 minutes of circulating behind the Safety Car in monsoon-level rain. Once the rain stopped falling, Rothberg led the field away in a single-file restart, and when the likes of Sofronas and Washington served their drive-through penalties, Rothberg had a five-second lead over the #27 CRP Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Jason Daskalos.
But it took one lock-up from Rothberg into Canada Corner to allow Daskalos to close up to within a second. The #3 SKI Autosport Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Johnny O’Connell and the #70 MISHUMotors Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R of Mirco Schultis also began closing in, but the top two would start to pull away from O’Connell and Schultis.
It got very close at the end – Daskalos tried an express mail send through the final corner – but Rothberg was able to hold on for the win by 0.729 seconds. It’s Rothberg’s second win of the season – his first also came in the wet at VIRginia International Raceway.
Daskalos took second and gained three points on O’Connell, who rounded out the podium in third. O’Connell’s lead is now down to six points in the SRO3 class standings.
Schultis finished fourth, ahead of the #14 GMG Racing Audi of James Sofronas, and the #32 GMG Racing Porsche of Kyle Washington, in fifth and sixth. Sofronas set the fastest lap of the race, giving him the pole for Race 2 tomorrow morning.
GT4 produced an outstanding finish, as ACI Motorsports’ Curt Swearingin secured his third win of the season with a last-lap pass on Gray Newell.
For the first three-quarters of the race, it was all Isaac Sherman – who was dominating the race in his #098 Rotek Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4. He won the pole in his class with ease – seven-tenths clear of Newell in the #25 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
But a flat left-front tyre dashed Sherman’s hopes of a ninth victory. He would finish sixth in class after pitting to replace the damaged tyres.
That put Newell in the lead, but Swearingin was on the charge – having cleared the #31 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin of Todd Parriott, he began tearing into Newell’s margin – which was down to 2.3 seconds with two laps to go, and just three-tenths as they took the white flag.
They touched and bumped through turn five, but continued – and Swearingin was able to carry his momentum through turn six to get past Newell and drive to the lead on the last lap!
Swearingin’s third win in the last four races brings him within 46 points of GT4 points leader Sherman with five races remaining. Newell consolidated second place. The Chattanooga-born driver also set the fastest lap to put him on pole tomorrow morning.
And Parriott held off the #21 Carrus Callas RaceTeam BMW M4 GT4 of Nicholas Shanny for the final podium position in class.
Images © Brian Cleary / SRO Motorsports America
