There was drama, there were tough battles and some unexpected twists. The 6 Hours of the Glen certainly did not disappoint as the unofficial halfway mark of the 2023 season.
When it was all said and done, World Of SimRacing Team with drivers Marco A Pereira and Adrian Subiela were front and center, to win the fourth-longest race of the season.
“Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.”, said Pereira in victory lane after winning the 6 Hours of the Glen, on the question of how he feels
“Getting our first win at Mosport was great. But this one means a lot more. It’s a tough race. We had to battle hard the entire race. I’m exhausted man (laughing). I’m just so happy for the whole team. Adrian (Subiela) especially. He’s been a fantastic team-mate to race with today.”
Putting together an impressive drive, the No. 151 took the checkered flag after over six hours of racing, a mere 2.7 seconds over second-place finishers No. 84 Fischer Motorsport, who sent off the Porsche 911 GT3 R (991) into a successful retirement.
Porsche will introduce the all-new Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) at the next championship round, the Detroit Sports Car Classic at Detroit Belle Isle on July 15th.
Leading a race-high 60 laps en route to their second win of the season and second win in the last two, it looked easier on paper than it was, for the World Of SimRacing Team, as the Fischer Motorsport was able to cut down the gap of the leaders in the closing laps of the race.
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| Saturday's 6 Hours of the Glen went very differently for the No. 5 Mercedes of Screeching Moose Motorsports (P5) and No. 29 Porsche of Firestorm Motorsport (P20 after crash) - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
For Fischer Motorsport and the No. 84 Porsche, Saturday’s podium easily marked the best result of the 2023 season so far - a season that has proved to be challenging for the team out of Leipzig, Germany.
Taking third place was the No. 33 BMW of Demon Tweeks eSports, who were one of a small number of cars in the race to field four drivers - Zak Lawson, Jack Haywood, James Capell and Lee King-Magee.
For the all-British team out of Wrexham, UK the third-place finish was the first podium in the VSCA SportsCar Championship that also catapulted the team up by two spots in the GTD class championship standings.
Dangler Performance and their No. 16 Mercedes took P4 right behind and earned their second consecutive top-five result with drivers Theo Taylor and Paul Romaninsky.
Likewise, the No. 16 Mercedes gained two spots in the championship and now sits eighth in the standings table at the halfway mark of the season.
Their Mercedes brand team-mates, the Screeching Moose Motorsports No. 5 Mercedes rounded out the top-five and also led two laps in the event, as drivers Makena Deane, Phillip Forrester and Anthony Bill combined for a very solid drive and the team’s third top-five result in six starts.
One of the most consistent teams on the grid, Saturday’s result also moved the No. 5 Mercede into the championship lead - the first time this season that the GTD class championship is led by a team other than the No. 67 Kinetic Racing Porsche.
After a heartbreaker of a race at Watkins Glen last year, things did go much better for David Sluiter and Carl Felver this time around, as the No. 94 Full Send Racing BMW M4 GT3 crossed the finish line in sixth place and even led two laps in the six-hour event.
With three top-ten finishes in six starts and sitting P17 in points, the team from Grand Junction, Colorado is not exactly a championship contender but has proved to belong in the series, gritting out solid results even when things don’t go perfectly smoothly. Case in point: The No. 94 car overcame three drive-through penalties in the six-hour event and still went on to claim P6.
The first GTD class car to finish the race not on the lead lap was the No. 54 MoneyHouse Racing BMW with drivers Austen Storey and Alexandra Butters, who crossed the line in P7, two laps down.
Olympus eSports and the No. 221 Lamborghini Hurácan GT3 Evo of Grant Yingling Vítor Brás finished in eighth place, likewise two laps down, marking the first time since Daytona that the team finished in the top-ten.
The No. 78 Champion Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 with drivers Marc Johnson, Brett Stephens and David Anderson took P9, three laps down - the team’s fourth top-ten result in six races this season.
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| Dominating the race early on after starting from VR7UAL Pole Position, the No. 119 Trading Paints Racing Lamborghini suffered huge heartbreak after an incident with a LMDh class car - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
Laguna Seca winners Torque Freak Racing and their No. 6 Lamborghini rounded out the top ten, but hardly seemed happy, finishing five laps down, just ahead of their long-time series rivals the No. 67 Kinetic Racing Porsche.
Over the course of the race, a total of four caution periods slowed the competition, adding a twist to strategy of teams and making the race more unpredictable. The last restart came with about 44 minutes remaining in the race, setting one last sprint to the finish.
New championship leader for first time this season
On account of their consistency - five top-ten finishes in six races - the No. 5 Screeching Moose Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3 now moves into the championship lead in GTD class with five more races to go.
Long-time championship leaders and three-time race winners this season, the No. 67 Kinetic Racing Porsche only took 11th place and lost valuable ground, but is still in the middle of championship contention with a 20-point deficit.
Torque Freak Racing also dropped one spot following Watkins Glen and now sits in third, only 24 points out of the lead.
A bit of a gap opens up behind the top-three with the No. 78 BMW of Champion Motorsports sitting in fourth place, with a 108-point deficit.
Now two-time race winners World Of SimRacing Team and their No. 151 BMW round out the top-five, with a gap of 259 points.
Detroit Belle Isle up next, as street course racing returns
The GTD class counts as the most physical and prone to car contacts and bumper-to-bumper battles in the VSCA SportsCar Championship. On top of this, the class will face another test of “racing as a contact sport” at Detroit Belle Isle on July 15th - the series’ second street course race of the season after Long Beach in April.
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