Mustang Challenge North America championship leader Cole Loftsgard in the #42 Round 3 Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse R took his seventh victory this morning at VIR, his third consecutive win and his fourth flag-to-flag victory from pole position of the season. The super rookie was cool under pressure in the caution-ridden Race 1, where he had to fend off three different restart attacks from Devin Anderson in the #22 TechSport Racing car.
As has become the norm in the fight for the lead, Loftsgard was put under heavy pressure by Devin Anderson straight off the start of the race. The two title contenders got a similar jump off the line, but Will Lucas in the #34 Wheelhouse Motorsports car was the fastest reactor, putting pressure on Loftsgard from behind starting from the second row.
The stampede of Mustangs wasted no time before leaning on each other, with the #9 Paley Motorsport AAG car of Chris Clarke picking up damage after battling with Paolo Salvatore in the #84 Torre Racing, sending his side bodywork flying onto the track where it would rest in the Snake complex at turn six.
As this played out, Tom Tait in the #8 Wheelhouse Motorsports car got the best of Oleg Gorshkov in the #70 Round 3 Racing machine to take the lead in the Dark Horse Legends class.
Anderson placed his #22 car very well on track to take advantage of his seemingly better pace on the straights, launching a move on Loftsgard in the Horseshoe (turns one and two), but Loftsgard ultimately had the better track position through the double left-hander in turns three and four, staying ahead.
Tait extended his lead in class as Gorshkov lost another position to Clarke, dropping to third. Clarke inadvertently gave this place back when he went off track in the Horseshoe seven minutes into the race, dipping a tyre into the wet grass on the outside, sending him into a spin and eventually into hard rear-first contact with the tyre barrier. His rear window shattered on impact, and the driver looked a bit shaken as he got out of the car.
After retrieving Clarke’s battered Mustang under caution, the race went back to green with 29 minutes of racing remaining. Loftsgard again had to fend off an attack from Anderson, who went for the same aggressive outside line into turn one. While Loftsgard maintained the position, Lucas got a good look in on Anderson from third position.
Gorshkov would retake the lead from Tait after Tait’s championship rival, Clarke, officially retired from the race, potentially playing it safe to protect his title bid.
Moments later, after two laps of green-flag running, the Horseshoe claimed its second and third victims of the day when Joseph Dederichs made hard side-to-side contact with Paolo Salvatore, sending them careening into the grass run-off area. Dederichs caught the grass on the inside of the turn, unsettling the car to the point where the Wheelhouse Motorsports driver was a passenger as he collected Salvatore.
Both cars sustained heavy bodywork and wheel well damage, and the retrieval cut a full ten minutes from the session before going back to green with 14 minutes on the clock.
Stewards deemed the previous incident Dederichs’ responsibility, and he would receive a drive-through penalty that has ramifications for tomorrow’s Race 2 since he was unable to serve it during this morning’s race.
Loftsgard was bold off the restart, looking close to jumping the gun and getting away a sliver earlier than his competition. Anderson was twice as bold, managing to get his car all the way alongside his rival but eventually conceding the position back to Loftsgard as the Round 3 Racing driver held on for dear life around the Horseshoe, both of them staying clean in their jockeying.
A third full-course caution would be triggered by a large piece of bodywork sitting on the racing line in turn one, but the race would resume quickly after the track marshals retrieved it.
There was action behind the leaders as Sandy Satullo, Ryan Persing and Tate Pritt fought for fourth position following the third restart of the race. This repeated a contentious Persing vs Pritt battle after the two drivers duked it out last round in both races at Watkins Glen.
Gorshkov lost and regained the lead from Tait, just moments before Persing became the fourth driver to be caught out by the Horseshoe when he outbraked himself, caught the grass off track, and headed straight for the barriers with five minutes left in the race. The 18-year-old Paley Motorsports with AAG driver was visibly upset as his day was done.
The race would end under caution as Persing’s white Mustang was pried out of the tyres. Six drivers failed to finish the race: four due to racing incidents and the other two being Ethan Low, who wheeled his mud-spattered Flying Lion Motorsports car into the pit lane during the Dederichs/Salvatore caution with race-ending damage, and Walter Bobko, who finished fourth but would come to a halt on track on the final lap for an unspecified reason.
Anderson finished the race second in Dark Horse behind Loftsgard, his fifth silver-medal finish of the season, keeping him in the fight for the championship. Will Lucas and teammate Sandy Satullo finished third and fourth in the Wheelhouse Motorsports cars, followed by Tate Pritt in the #98 Automatic Racing car.
In Dark Horse Legends, Gorshkov claimed his third victory on his third race start in Mustang Challenge after a fraught battle throughout the 45-minute sprint with Tait. Although he is not in the running for the championship as a mid-season addition to the paddock, he is in a position to disrupt the Tait-Clarke title battle if he continues to show race-winning pace.
Tait finished second, ahead of Nicholas Smither in the #58 Nick Smither Racing car, who had a relatively quiet race as his fellow Legends drivers struggled for position or failed to finish.
Race 2 is set for tomorrow morning at 9:45 am ET and will hopefully see a lot more green-flag running after a chaotic and expensive Race 1.
Images © Ford
