Michai Stephens and Mikaël Grenier scored a dominant and much-needed win in GT World Challenge America Race 2 from Barber Motorsports Park on Sunday.
The #34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO only surrendered the race lead during the mid-race pit interval. Grenier’s closest challenge in the first 20 minutes was the #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Connor De Phillippi in second.
But both the #99 and #51 Random Vandals BMWs would have to make unscheduled pit stops for what Team Principal Paul Sparta believed to be a fuel pickup problem in both cars.
That paved the way for Grenier, and then Stephens, to drive away to victory by 28.6 seconds for their third overall and fourth Pro class win of the season, over the #18 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Alex Sedgwick and Jan Heylen.
Kenton Koch was able to recover and salvage third place in the #99 Random Vandals BMW despite the extra pit stop.
Koch and De Phillippi still lead the Pro class championship standings going into the season-ending Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS, a double-points race. But with their Race 2 win, Stephens and Grenier have reduced their championship lead to just 15 points.
Blake McDonald and Matthew Bell finished fourth in their #11 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, and scored their fourth Pro-Am win of the year.
From fifth place at the start of his stint, an in-form McDonald caught and passed the #88 Archangel Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Todd Coleman, then ran down and passed the #32 GMG Racing Porsche of Kyle Washington to take the class lead in the final ten minutes.
Bill Auberlen and Varun Choksey salvaged fifth in the #51 Random Vandals BMW, while Washington and Tom Sargent finished sixth overall and second in Pro-Am.
The last 15 minutes featured a spellbinding battle between CRP Racing’s Jason Daskalos – one of SRO America’s longest-serving clubman racers – and Regulator Racing’s Mercedes-AMG Performance Driver, Philip Ellis. Daskalos, to his credit, was able to keep Ellis at bay for several laps.
But on the last lap, Ellis tapped the rear of Daskalos’ car and sent the #27 CRP Mercedes-AMG spinning around. In response, the #91 Regulator Mercedes pulled over to let the #27 car through. Daskalos and Isaac Sherman would take the final place on the Pro-Am podium in seventh place overall.
A slow pit stop and trouble in traffic left the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW (Justin Rothberg/Robby Foley) down in eighth, ahead of the #91 Regulator Mercedes of Ellis and Jeff Burton, then the #16 AF Corse USA Ferrari 296 GT3 (Diego Gomes Nunes/Marcelo Hahn), which rounded out the top ten.
However these results may change as two incidents would be investigated after the race: The contact between Daskalos and Ellis, and another incident between Rothberg and Coleman which sent the #88 McLaren down to 12th.
As they finished on the road, however, McDonald and Bell’s victory keeps them within at least 25 points of Pro-Am championship leaders Rothberg and Foley.
Scott Dollahite and Eric Powell won the two-car Am class duel in their #6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3. Their two wins in two races give them the Am championship lead going into Indy, on Saturday 17 October.
Images © SRO Motorsports America
