There is a saying “Racing is life”. And life can be hard sometimes.
Torque Freak Racing with its No. 43 Dallara in P2 Prototype and No. 6 Porsche in GT3 class, entered Saturday’s Elkhart Lake Sports Car Challenge at Road America leading the VSCA Sprint Cup championship standings in both classes.
By Saturday evening, Torque Freak Racing had lost both championships due to accidents involving both cars of the British team in the final VSCA Sprint Cup race of the year.
P2 Prototype race win & VSCA Sprint Cup down to two teams
Element SimRacing’s No. 7 Dallara team took full advantage and captured its third season victory at the hands of drivers Nils Hundehege and Jan Vollmers, holding off a hard charge by the No. 79 Dallara of Champion Motorsports, who finished second.
Both cars had entered the VSCA Sprint Cup finale trailing Torque Freak Racing’s No. 43 Dallara by 90 points.
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| The biggest crash of the race: After contact between the No. 151 FBP Racing Ferrari and No. 85 Fischer Motorsport Porsche, a huge crash involving the No. 43 Torque Freak Racing Dallara and No. 16 Resolve Racing Porsche ensues |
After the championship leaders’ demise near the midway point of the race, due to a horrible accident on the back stretch heading into Canada Corner that was triggered by contact between the No. 85 Porsche of Fischer Motorsport and the No. 151 FBP Racing Ferrari, the P2 Prototype VSCA Sprint Cup championship came down to Champion Motorsports and Element SimRacing.
Whoever among the two would finish ahead at Road America, would also capture the Sprint Cup championship – the in-series championship enclosing Laguna Seca, Mid-Ohio, CTMP and Road America.
Element SimRacing’s Nils Hundehege kept the No. 7 Dallara in contention with solidly running in the top-five early on, before completing the driver swap pit stop and handing the car over to Jan Vollmers who dominated the second half of the race.
At the end, Element SimRacing held a 40-second lead to take checkered flag, deciding the first official championship in VSCA history.
The No. 79 Dallara of Champion Motorsports with drivers Thomas Fisher and John-Taylor Tami lead one lap and finished second, once again proving to be one of the top P2 Prototype teams of the season, falling just short of its maiden victory.
The No. 211 Dallara of Precision Racing eSports with drivers Darrian Roy and Lance Loomis completed the P2 Prototype podium at Road America, in third place.
The No. 747 Dallara Lone Wolf Motorsports, who earned the VSCA GRID Pole award (their first) for the race, finished fourth but once again ran into some trouble late in the race. Still, it was a positive comeback for the team, that suffered an early DNF due to a huge crash at CTMP in July and lost the championship lead at Watkins Glen in June.
Agee Motorsports and the No. 17 Dallara team continue an under-the-radar but successful 2022 campaign by taking fifth place in the Elkhart Lake Sports Car Challenge at Road America, marking the team’s third top-five and sixth top ten of the season. The result moves the Roanake, Virginia team up one spot in the standings to seventh place.
Kinetic Racing takes Sprint Cup and race win in GT3
Torque Freak Racing had traveled to Road America with a second GT3 entry, the No. 359 Porsche 911 GT3 R, in an effort to bolster its lineup for the final two races of the year.
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| Torque Freak Racing's championship-leading No. 6 Porsche crashed out on lap one, after getting rear-ended by its team-mate ncar, the No. 359 Porsche |
In a dramatic turn of events the car rear-ended its championship-leading sister car No. 6 Porsche on lap one, heading into turn five, creating a scene putting fans and competitors into total disbelief.
“I just couldn’t believe what was happening. It was unreal. Not in a million years you’d think a championship contender would get taken out by its own team-mate car. I’ve never seen this before, I don’t think.”, a race fan said after witnessing the incident.
The No. 6 Porsche was forced to take lengthy repairs and went on to finish the race in 18th place, three laps down, on a bitterly disappointing day, seeing the VSCA Sprint Cup GT3 championship slip away at the last moment.
The team’s chances to earn the GT3 overall SportsCar Championship also have taken a serious hit, as Kinetic Racing’s win gives them a 170-point cushion heading into the season finale at Road Atlanta in October.
With the championship leaders out of contention for Saturday’s race, the early stages were dominated by FBP Racing’s No. 151 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo and Twenty7 Motorsports’ No. 27 BMW M4 GT3.
Twenty7 Motorsports with Nelson Inacio behind the wheel of their BMW M4 GT3 went on to race-high 39 laps, but lost what seemed a sure-fire win, during the final pit stop when the team from Portugal took four tires. The decision set the team back all the way to P11. Team-mate Ptrovik Gomes battled hard and still earned the team a fourth-place finish, but it wasn’t enough to get back to the lead in time for finish.
Ultimately the GT3 battle for the win came down to the No. 84 Porsche of Fischer Motorsport, who were leading four laps before making their final pit stop and the No. 67 Porsche of Kinetic Racing.
Fischer Motorsport’s premier GT entry with drivers Manuel Mayer, who has only recently recovered from COVID-19 and team-mate Jay Van Meppelen completed their pit stop and rejoined the track, knowing that the No. 67 Kinetic Racing team would also have to make their final pit stop soon.
Three laps later No. 67 Porsche driver Aedan Campbell brought the car in to the pits and the Kinetic pit crew completed service fast enough to take the lead from the No. 84 machine of Fischer Motorsport and went on to take the checkered flag – the team’s second win of the season.
“Unfortunately, we took too much fuel on that final pit stop, due to a calculation error. That cost us valuable time, but I’m not sure it would have made a difference anyhow. The 67 was incredibly fast. Kudos to them. We’ll try again at Petit (Le Mans) and hopefully we can finally get that first win. We keep getting closer, I can feel it.”, said Fischer Motorsport driver Mayer.
Reigning 24 Hours of Daytona GT3 champions, the No. 13 Meguiars Team FR13DA Sport Porsche took third place, to round out an all-Porsche podium.
The No. 29 Firestorm Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 finished fifth, as the best-finishing Audi in the field, while the top Mercedes AMG GT3 was DRG Racing’s No. 97 machine in P8.
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| Kinetic Racing once again used strategy to their full advantage, to take the win at Road America and the championship lead |
Series newcomers and first-time entry, the No. 4 Delta Racing BMW showed very strong performances in the free practice sessions but suffered a set-back following a drive-through penalty early in the race and crashed on the exit of the carousel later.
Completing only 47 of 69 laps, the team from Brazil failed to reach the 70% threshold needed to earn championship points in its series debut.
VSCA SportsCar Championship & Endurance Cup finale at Road Atlanta in October
With the spectacular shakeup in the championship standings, Element SimRacing is now in pristine position to claim the overall series championship on October 8th in the ten-hour Petit Le Mans season finale.
With a 320-point margin over the No. 51 Dallara of World SimRacing Team – who finished sixth at Road America – earning 40 championship points (P22, last place in P2 class pays 90 points) will be enough for the team from Münster, Germany to take the P2 Prototype title, regardless of what the competition does.
Taking the win at Road America while Torque Freak Racing finished in 20th place, put Kinetic Racing one major step closer to the GT3 SportsCar Championship heading into Petit Le Mans.
With a 170-point cushion, the No. 67 Porsche has to finish 12th at Road Atlanta to take the title, regardless of where the direct opponents finish.
The VSCA Petit Le Mans is scheduled for October 8th and will see an early start time at 14:00 GMT / 10 am EDT.
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