Drivers Joshua Wolf and Treavor Vavrosky teamed up to lead 17 laps en route to their first ever VSCA SportsCar Championship win for Grizzly Motorsports.
After the fourth and final full course caution of the day, the race resumed back to the green with 44 minutes to go.
Leading the field to the green flag on the restart, the No. 88 car of DS Racing eSports initially lost the first position to 24 Hours of Daytona champions No. 3 BMW of Mayer Simspeed Performance and Kyle Birnie, who timed the restart perfectly and got a huge run into turn one.
But just a few corners later, it was Wolf in the No. 7 car taking second and the No. 88 back in the lead.
Just a handful of laps later the No. 7 and No. 3 entered pit lane for their final round of pit stops, while DS Racing eSports maintained the lead for another lap, before they would do the same.
On account of a much slower pit stop, the now former race leaders dropped back and the Grizzly Motorsports machine now took over the top spot heading into the final hour of the race - and never looked back.
That was - until lap 197 when Dani Fonte Pedra and the No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team BMW showed up in full size in Wolf’s rearview mirror, setting up an unexpectedly dramatic finale to the six-hour race.
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| Lap 4: The No. 79 Champion Motorsports and No. 21 Olympus eSports BMW crash while catching GTD class traffic - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
On the penultimate lap, the two cars were battling for the lead and ultimately the win. Racing down the straight heading into the bus stop chicane, the two LMDh class leaders reached the slower class GTD car of Torque Freak Racing’s Lamborghini.
In a dramatic turn of events, the No. 51 car of Pedra first made contact with Wolf’s No. 7 BMW, then slammed into the rear of the GT, who then crashed hard into the barriers.
Miraculously all three cars were able to continue the race, but the dice had been cast and Joshua Wolf took the checkered flag, earning Grizzly Motorsports’ first-ever VSCA SportsCar Championship victory.
On the final lap, David Miguel Ferraira in the No. 88 DS Racing eSpots machine and Sheamus Power in the No. 99 JO Motorsports car both passed the No. 51 car, to finish third and second, respectively.
World Of SimRacing Team and their No. 51 LMDh team ended up finishing fifth officially, after receiving post-race penalties from race control for two separate incidents, as the team is still waiting for its first LMDh class victory in the series.
The No. 10 Race4Cat Motorsports team with Marc Freixa and Joan Guerrero finished in fourth place, two laps down. The team that won the race at Laguna Seca in May was involved in a controversial accident earlier in the race.
In turn twelve, the Catalunya team’s car made contact with long-time GTD class race leaders No. 119 Lamborghini of Trading Paints Racing. The crash ended a promising event at Watkins Glen for the GT entry that dominated the race up until that point.
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| Two laps before the finish: Fighting for overall race victory, the No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team car first makes contact with race leader No. 7 BMW of Grizzly Motorsports, then plows hard into the rear of the No. 6 Lamborghini of Torque Freak Racing - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
After missing the previous two races, the No. 12 Delta Racing BMW Hybrid V8 returned by scoring its best result of the 2023 season so far, taking sixth place.
The team out of Brazil with drivers João Vitor Delgado and Washington Carvalho even led 23 laps - the first time the entry had been running up front in its inaugural VSCA season.
Eight laps down, because of a tough crash on lap four in the boot section of the track, seventh place went to the No. 79 BMW LMDh of Champion Motorsports. The defending VSCA Endurance Cup champions with drivers Thomas Fisher and Cameron Barker battled hard and completed a damage control-type-of-race to claim their fifth top ten in six races this season.
For Mayer Simspeed Performance, things looked promising after jumping to the lead on the restart in the final hour of the race, with Kyle Birnie behind the steering wheel.
But everything went sideways - literally - for Birnie and his team on lap 175. With just thirty minutes to go, holding third position, the San José, California native found himself under fire from the No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team BMW of Dani Fonte Pedra going into turn nine.
The two cars fought hard and neither driver would give in, leading to contact between the two, with the worse end of the stick for the No. 3 Mayer Simspeed machine, who had to pit for repairs on the same lap.
The repair cost the No. 3 team eleven laps, as the crew worked feverishly to fix all the damage sustained in the incident.
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| After winning at CTMP earlier this month, JO Motorsports and the No. 99 BMW team had another strong outing and took second place at Watkins Glen - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
With eleven minutes remaining in the race, Birnie returned to the track, only to end up in another massive crash - this time in turn twelve - on lap 182, when he made contact with the No. 85 Fischer Motorsport Porsche of Will Robertson.
The Mayer Simspeed Performance car would not return to the track, as the car was totaled in the crash.
Rounding out the top ten, but failing to score any championship points by account of completing not enough laps in the event, were the No. 73 DeltaSport (formerly Race Factory) car and the No. 21 Olympus eSports BMW.
For Matt Loveridge, driver of the Olympus eSpors machine, the race was over on lap six already, when he was involved in a crash with the No. 79 car of Cameron Barker.
First win catapults Grizzly Motorsports into championship lead
Not only did the Portland, Oregon team celebrate its first-ever VSCA SportsCar Championship victory at Watkins Glen, but the No. 7 BMW also catapulted itself into the series points lead.
Ten points back are former championship leaders and 24 Hours of Daytona winners Mayer Simspeed, who are eager to end a recent stretch of disappointing races and return to form.
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| Contact between the No. 10 BMW LMDh of Race4Cat Motorsport and then GTD class leader the No. 119 Trading Paints Racing Lamborghini made for some early controversy in Saturday's 6 Hours of the Glen - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
Champion Motorsports didn’t have much reason to smile at Watkins Glen either, but are still right in the mix for the series championship, sitting third in points only 44 points behind.
JO Motorsports, who won at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park earlier this month, hold fourth place in the table, but face a significant gap at 219 points and will hope for some bad luck or slip up by the top three.
Race4Cat Motorsports and their No. 10 team round out the top-five in the series standings, as the season has officially entered the second half.
Four-fold battle for Endurance Cup championship
The 6 Hours of the Glen at Watkins Glen also marked the third of four Endurance Cup races of the year.
With just one more Endurance Cup race remaining - Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in October - the No. 3 Mayer Simspeed Performance BMW holds the lead by three points over former series competitors No. 24 Stow Motorsports BMW, who have since folded from competition.
World Of SimRacing Team and their No. 51 car sit only six points behind the leaders and will be battling for the championship in the October season finale.
Likewise, Watkins Glen race winners No. 7 BMW of Grizzly Motorsports only have to make up an eight-point deficit to take their first title in VSCA at the end of this year.
With Detroit Belle Isle up next, series returns to street course racing
Round 3 at Long Beach in April marked the first-ever street course race in the history of the VSCA SportsCar Championship. Up next will be a visit of the series to Detroit Belle Isle for its second street course race of the season - the Detroit Sports Car Classic on July 15th.
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