Yahoo Autos Racers Edge Acura takes World Challenge GT win in COTA Race 2 as Wright secures weekend sweep
The Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS series celebrated the start of Race 2 at Circuit of The Americas with cowboys, horses and mariachi. The weather cooperated at that point but with sporadic showers throughout the day, the track surface soon became a hot topic. Indeed, the 16 cars on the grid faced rain in the closing half hour of the competition for an added challenge.
The start of the race stayed clean but one entry noticeably missing from the field was the No. 21 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, after the Race 1 incident between it and the No. 94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3 ended the Conquest Racing team’s weekend early. The No. 94 BMW was held responsible for the incident and therefore started Race 2 from the pit lane.
PRO class
Consistency and strategy put the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 of Ashton Harrison and Mario Farnbacher on top, advancing six positions throughout the race. After a bout of struggles and bad luck the team could breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy capping COTA off with champagne. Second place went to the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Eric Filgueiras and Steven McAleer.
Filgueiras reeled in Harrison over the course of the race but ran out of time for a true battle. After winning Race 1, the RS1 team is walking away with a nice buffer in the points championship. Third place was the ever-steady duo of Seth Lucas and Trenton Estep in the No. 53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. MDK Motorsports is still in the hunt for a PRO Class win but their clean weekends are mounting into multiple podium results.
PRO-AM class
Adam Adelson and Elliot Skeer in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R swept the weekend with a second win in Race 2. The Porsche thrived on the flowing track with the dominance of Adelson and Skeer behind the wheel. Valentin Hasse Clot and Derek DeBoer earned a second-place finish, the team’s third podium appearance, in the No. 007 TRG Aston Martin Vantage AMR.
The talk of the race was the battle for third in the PRO-AM class. Jan Heylen in the No. 45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R swapped paint with John Edwards in the No. 38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3. But things didn’t truly heat up until Charlie Luck and Samantha Tan were behind the wheel. They went side by side lap after lap for well over 15-minutes. Luck would eventually out run Tan for the final step of the podium.
Anthony Bartone and Andy Pilgrim of No. 43 RealTime Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 continue designing Bartone’s future in the Am Class. Bartone began the race and passed the driving duties off to Pilgrim to take the car to the finish.
Fans can relive the COTA action by following the GT World page on YouTube. The Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS series now goes east for rounds seven and eight. Virginia International Raceway host the doubleheader weekend for all of the SRO Motorsports America series June 16-18.
