It truly was a historic race for the VSCA SportsCar Championship on Saturday, as the VSCA Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio was also the first ever VSCA race broadcast live on Apex Racing TV.
Making the most of an exceptionally clean run, both cars of Torque Freak Racing benefited from several contenders finding trouble in the 2 hour and 40 minutes long race.
But even more so, both Torque Freak cars benefited from staying out of trouble and away from the eye of race control, that was once again busy on race day.
The overall race winner No. 43 Dallara with drivers Treavor Vavrosky and Joshua Wolf started from 14th place on the grid and didn’t take the lead until 23 laps remaining in the race, but never looked back from then on.
Championship leaders and race co-favorites Lone Wolf Motorsports and their No. 747 Dallara had their worst race of the season after being penalized with a one-lap stop & hold penalty and ending up P13.
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| The No. 97 DRG Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 and the No. 67 Porsche of Kinetic Racing engaged in a long and entertaining GT3 class battle early on. They wound up finishing sixth and second, respectively. |
Still, the Denmark based team, that has held the overall championship lead since winning the 24 Hours of Daytona in January, gets to see another day atop the point standings, hanging on to a ten-point lead of Element SimRacing’s No. 7 Dallara team, who finished Saturday’s race in tenth place.
Champion Motorsports and the No. 79 Dallara P217 team with Canadian driver Thomas Fisher and British teammate Cameron Baker took second place, but felt a little disappointed nonetheless, coming ever so close to their first victory.
“The disappointment is definitely there. Even if we go back to look at the gap we had before our final pit stop, it should have been enough to win, even with the massive tire falloff at the end.”, explained Fisher.
“But yeah, we just got unlucky. A Porsche went too deep into turn twelve and nicked us in the rear end and spun us around. So, yeah... our first podium and we’re happy with it, but also a little disappointed in the end.”, Fisher added.
Rounding out the P2 Prototype podium was Race4CAT Motorsport’s No. 10 Dallara team, who are now climbing three spots in the point standings to seventh in the VSCA SportsCar Championship with four races remaining.
Rolling into victory lane, the No. 43 Dallara team of Torque Freak Racing celebrated the huge victory.
“Yeah, we had some great calls in the team. But I think the biggest thing was just keeping the nose clean, getting through the traffic. And we’ve seen all race that we seem to be one of the better teams to get through traffic. That was the big thing with this track.”, Joshua Wolf said to Apex Racing TV in victory lane.
In GT3, celebrations continued for Torque Freak Racing, as the No. 6 Porsche continues to be in a roll, taking a second consecutive victory following Laguna Seca last month – another historic first in the series’ young history – that a team wins twice in the same season.
Drivers Neil Middleton and Jonathan Dance also followed through on their team’s concept – focus on what you can control and stay out of trouble and away from penalties – and repeated the benefits to win the race after leading the final ten laps.
For the second race in a row, the No. 67 Porsche of Kinetic Racing put on the pressure on Torque Freak Racing, but ultimately had to settle for second, leading a race-high 71 laps and winning the VSCA GRID Pole award for the race.
This year’s 12 Hours of Sebring winners, the No. 27 BMW of Twenty7 Motorsport completed the GT3 class podium.
Freshly baked two-time VSCA SportsCar Championship race winner Neil Middleton said in victory lane:
“Double victory for the team, second win in a row for our GT3 – this couldn’t have gone much better, could it?”
In a bit of a stunning statement, the British driver then went on to say:
“To be honest, we had a fairly relaxing race. I mean, we weren’t pushing that much for the whole thing. In the first hour, we sort of were hanging on to the first three. They were having incidents and penalties amongst each other and we were just kind of watching. Then we did our driver change and just logged laps until the end.”
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| Championship leaders, the No. 747 Dallara of Lone Wolf Motorsports had a season-worst P13 finish at Mid-Ohio, following a one-lap stop and hold penalty for this incident involving the No. 211 P2 Prototype of Night-Blind Racing |
After a caution fest at Laguna Seca last month, Saturday’s championship round four at Mid-Ohio saw a vast improvement in green flag racing for teams and fans alike, as only one caution interrupted the race just about as it was to hit the halfway mark.
Celebrating top-five finishes for the first time this season were the No. 19 Dallara of Trading Paints Racing Team and FBP Racing’s No. 151 Ferrari, who made their first start since Daytona, when they were leading the season-opener, but got taken out in a violent crash not of their making.
Agee Motorsports and the No. 17 Dallara team with Dutchman Jeroen Hannink and Italian teammate Pier Armando Vender earned their second top-five finish after Sebring and have consequently moved into the top-ten in the VSCA SportsCar Championship standings.
The No. 84 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Fischer Motorsport had an excellent opportunity to earn its first top-five of the season, when a fueling issue on their final scheduled pit stop forced them to pit once more. Drivers Manuel Mayer and Jay van Meppelen still achieved a P8 finish and are one of the big gainers after Mid-Ohio, moving up four spots in the GT3 championship standings, into fourth place.
Another team on the move is the No. 312 BMW M4 GT3 of Real Pixel Motorsports. After missing the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona, the team has earned two top-ten finishes, placing them 12th in the championship, though with a hefty 590 point margin.
The VSCA Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio also marked Round 2 of the 2022 VSCA Sprint Cup – an in-series championship counting the four sprint races of the season’s calendar. After two races and with two more Sprint Cup races to go at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in July and Road America in August, three teams are tied for the P2 Prototype points lead: The No. 10 Dallara of Race4CAT Motorsport, the No. 79 team of Champion Motorsports and Mid-Ohio winners, the No. 43 Dallara P217 of Torque Freak Racing.
Not quite as close but also very entertaining, the VSCA Sprint Cup standings in GT3 see Torque Freak Racing’s No. 6 Porsche team atop the standings with two victories in two starts, followed by Kinetic Racing at two second-place finishes in two races and 60 points back and the No. 94 Lamborghini team of FASTR eSports in third, 130 points behind.
Taking seventh place in Saturday’s race, the No. 111 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo of HAC Racing celebrated a successful series debut ahead of their home state race that’s coming up next.
In three weeks, the VSCA SportsCar Championship teams and drivers will travel to the U.S. state of New York for Round 5, the 6 Hours of the Glen at Watkins Glen International on June 18th.
Apex Racing TV will return to the series with the Canadian Sports Car Challenge at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park on July 9th.
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