Champion Motorsports and Torque Freak Racing Ascari both walked away from Road America defeated. In an intense championship battle for the VSCA Sprint Cup in the P2 Prototype class, they both lost out to the No. 7 Dallara of Element SimRacing.

Coming from third place in the standings prior to Road America, the No. 7 car driven by Jan Vollmers and Nils Hundehege pulled off a near masterclass effort to take the win from Thomas Fisher and John-Taylor Tami in the No. 79 Champion Motorsports Dallara P217.

Torque Freak entered the weekend 90 points clear of the No. 79 crew, meaning they only had to finish in the top 5 to claim the title. Their race started strong, being in third by the time the race’s lone Full Course Yellow was deployed.

However, on the restart, contact with the No. 747 Lone Wolf Motorsports during an opportunistic overtake attempt by Joshua Wolf in the No. 43 sent them spinning into the gravel and saw them tumble down to behind the GTD field on track.

Their hopes were thrashed when the No. 85 Fischer Motorsport Porsche was sent flying across the track after a previous collision and directly into the path of a helpless Joshua Wolf who was sent up into the catch fence.

The No. 43 crew of Torque Freak Racing were able to fix the car enough to send it back out on track to finish the race but wound up dead last.

Joshua Wolf on his thoughts on the race:

“The race was very exciting. Going into it, [Torque Freak Racing] had two cars within shot of winning the Sprint Cup championship. We had the lead in the standings going in. Treavor did an amazing job keeping it clean and maintaining position.”

“We had a great stop and driver change gaining a position on pit road. On the restart I had a great start and went to make a move going into T1 that did not feel like a risky pass, but it did end up with contact and me spun out with no damage.

VSCA Sprint Cup championship leaders Torque Freak Racing and their No. 43 Dallara were caught in a terrible crash caused by an incident between two GT3 cars around the midway point of the race at Road America, costing them a shot at the title.

This then made us come out in the back of the GT field. Two GT cars made contact after the kink, and I had nowhere to go. This gave us 23 minutes of damage and all we could hope for was trouble for the No. 7 or No. 79 and neither had it.”

“All I had to do was finish 4th and we would have won and that did not happen. Treavor and I are ready to go for next season though and we will be back and ready to fight for the championship next year.”, said Wolf.

In contrast to the No. 43, the Champion Motorsports car saw a horrible beginning to the race, and there was even drama before the haulers turned up for the weekend.

Prior to the weekend it was announced by the team management that season long driver Cameron Barker would be unable to partake in the weekend, which meant that John-Taylor “JT” Tami would share honors with Thomas Fisher.

Saturday morning, John-Taylor qualified the car in seventh position. When the green flag dropped, a bad launch saw Tami drop behind the No. 211 Precision Racing eSports Dallara driven by Darrian Roy. Following that Tami had to avoid piling into the back of the field after being caught off guard into the breaking zone of turn five.

A few lazy spins followed which saw them drop to last as the Full Course Yellow was deployed. Thomas Fisher jumped in the car and, due to the fuel saving from Tami and the incredible speed of the pitstop - not easy given Fisher’s 6’3” frame - the team jumped six cars in the pits, promoting them to  seventh position.

From then on Fisher drove the car up to P2 and remained there until the end of the race.

After the race Fisher shared his thoughts on the race, and the championship.

“I mean how else to say it? Really gutted obviously, we lost a lot of big points at Mosport and Mid-Ohio through no fault of our own and today I just couldn’t catch Jan.”

“In the end though, they were the better and more consistent team, and they deserved the championship a lot more than us.”, Fisher added.

“Today’s race was up and down; JT was having some issues with the rear end of the car so fantastic job by him to keep us in contention. After that I got in the car and tried to push as much as I could. We didn’t get the fuel strategy right in the end either and had to save a lap of fuel in five laps which knocked us back nearly 30 seconds, so I guess we were lucky to finish second.”

Champion Motorsports owner David Anderson on his team’s performance and the future of the brand within VSCA:

“I have been very happy with the performance potential and professionalism the team has shown, for both the Prototype 2 and GT3 entry in this first season with VSCA.”

“Our teams have regularly competed in the top half of the field, and with a bit more luck on our side, I believe have the makings of Championship caliber teams.”

“It has also been a privilege to represent our community in VSCA, and the organizers of VSCA have done a tremendous job with immersion and realism in this series.”, Anderson added.

“We definitely plan to be back next year and focus on a strong finish at Petit Lemans. Our goal is to get both cars in the winner’s circle for the last event of 2022.”Although the sun has set on the VSCA Sprint Cup this year, the overall SportsCar Championship and Endurance Cup are still up for grabs, with the No. 7 leading the championship and being the favorite to win it all.

The question with one race remaining will be: Is there anyone who can stop P2 Prototype points leaders Element SimRacing? VSCA returns on October 8 for the finale of the inaugural VSCA SportsCar Championship in Georgia, at Road Atlanta.