DXDT Racing’s dominance of GT World Challenge America continued on Saturday as professional sports car racing returned to Barber Motorsports Park for the first time since 2016.
Alec Udell and Tommy Milner drove the #63 DXDT Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R to victory in Race 1, their sixth overall victory in seven races with the new Corvette, and their seventh Pro class win in as many races. Bryson Morris and Bryan Sellers won the Pro-Am class aboard the sister Corvette, which was renumbered from #08 to #64 going into the weekend.
Qualifying on Saturday morning set the grid for both races. For the second time in as many weekends, Udell won the pole position for Race 1 – but only by 0.035 seconds ahead of the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 of Luca Mars in second.
Udell led the field of 16 cars to the green flag and held his lead. Mars dropped from second to fourth on the opening lap behind a hard-charging Philip Ellis in the #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 – and Conor Daly, making his first start of the year in the #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT3.
Though the #63 Corvette led the opening stanza of the race, the #91 Mercedes of Ellis stayed with Udell until the leader came in for his compulsory pit stop. Milner would re-emerge with the lead in the Corvette, but he wouldn’t have it easy either – as the #99 BMW, now driven by Kenton Koch, took Ellis’ place and challenged for the victory. Koch closed in on Milner with 30 minutes left, and the two practically ran tail-to-nose until the chequered flag.
But Koch couldn’t get through – he tried a lunge up the inside of the final corner with ten minutes left, but it was as close as he’d get until the chequered flag.
Milner would hang on by just over a second to take the victory and keep the #63 DXDT Corvette’s perfect run in the Pro class going.
The new #99 Random Vandals BMW of Koch and Daly took its best finish of the season, just behind them in second place.
Completing the podium was the #93 Racers Edge Acura of Mars and Zach Veach, coming back to take third place from the #28 ST Racing BMW of Auberlen and Varun Choksey, which finished in fourth.
Fifth place overall went to the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (Adam Adelson/Elliott Skeer), which fell away from the rest of the Pro class pack early on and couldn’t close the gap near the end.
Adelson and Skeer’s lead in the Pro Drivers’ Championship has now been trimmed to just 20 points over Udell and Milner – who, on current form, should now be considered the favourites to take the title with only two races remaining. Choksey and Auberlen sit on the fringes, 40 points out of the lead.
After Ellis ran as high as second place overall, Jeff Burton took over the #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes with a comfortable margin in the race for the Pro-Am victory.
Unfortunately, the Bronze-rated Burton ran out of time as Bryan Sellers in the #64 DXDT Corvette closed in with less than five minutes to go, then passed Burton for sixth place overall – and the class lead.
Sellers wouldn’t look back as he, alongside the newcomer Morris, took their second straight Pro-Am class win of the season.
Finishing behind them was the #85 RS1 Porsche (Jake Pedersen/Trent Hindman), in seventh position – and on the Pro-Am podium for the first time since Race 1 at COTA.
Rounding out that Pro-Am podium was the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW (Justin Rothberg/Robby Foley) in third place, after a fantastic recovery drive from Rothberg and Foley that had significant implications on the race for the Pro-Am Championship.
At the start, Rothberg was spun at the first corner by the #38 ST Racing BMW of Samantha Tan. Tan, the championship leader heading into the weekend, was subsequently given two drive-through penalties – one for moving out of line at the start of the race, and one for avoidable contact.
While Rothberg and Foley recovered well, the best that Tan and Verhagen could manage at the end was seventh in Pro-Am – and 12th overall. That’s taken the gap in the Pro-Am standings down to 36 points, and with Foley starting on the pole for Race 2 on Sunday, Turner Motorsport still has a chance to gain even more ground in the standings.
Burton dropped off the podium in the closing minutes of the race as the #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes finished ninth, rounding out the top ten was the #32 GMG Racing Porsche (Kyle Washington/Tom Sargent) in tenth.
GT World Challenge America’s second race of the weekend starts Sunday at 2:15 PM CDT (local time).
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
