Josh Gowin, Nicholas Gowin, Jack Hedgcoxe, Eugene Maltsev and Chip Michaels teamed up in the #18 Gowin Racing Dallara P217 to lead 179 laps in the official 2024 season opener to claim victory at Daytona - the team’s first ever in VSCA.
After 24 hours of racing, the Wilmington, North Carolina team beat the #14 Fischer Motorsport Dallara to the line by just 1.222 seconds in an exciting photo finish, proving once again to anyone who still had doubts, that LMP2 class racing is one of the most exciting in the series.
“It feels great! Amazing, really. This was our fourth Daytona 24 as a team, but our first in VSCA. We are all well versed in the endurance aspect of team racing, so we know what a race like the Daytona 24 requires and are up to the task.”, said Nicholas Gowin in the winner’s circle, after exiting the car.
“I feel like it's a statement from our team to the rest of the LMP2 class that we are here to compete for a championship and nothing less.”
About the thrilling final hour of the race, Gowin said:
“When we took the green after the final yellow the only thing in my mind was ‘Don't make a mistake. Hit your marks and go.’”
“I didn't want to give the #14 an avoidable opportunity to get ahead of us. Luckily for me my teammates were there with me the whole way and helped keep me focused. The gap didn't really expand until the last couple laps.”
“With a few laps to go, we were hitting GT traffic. The worst area for traffic is the bus-stop which we inevitably found. I did have to make an opportunistic move on a GT on entry into the bus stop to keep the 14 from catching my draft on exit, coming to the last couple of laps. After that it was just about bringing it home.”
Rico Kollmeier tried his best, pushing hard in the final laps in an attempt to catch the eventual race winners, but had to settle for second in the end, earning himself and his team-mates Michael Adamczyk and Travis Linscome-Hatfield a repeat of last year’s second-place finish. Still, the highest-ranked LMP2 team from last season to return this year, led 59 laps and is off to a good start to the 2024 season.
Completing the LMP2 class podium, the #123 Tri-State Racing Dallara with Chris Cadiz, Sam Vaughan, Brandon Renner, Christian Sherrard, Thomas Marcelino and Garret Spenst took third place.
The team out of Montclair, New Jersey who made their first-ever appearance in a VSCA SportsCar Championship points race, impressed fans and competitors with very competitive pace and consistency across the race, earning a spot in the early conversation of contenders this season.
Series veterans Andy Banfield, Alexander Banfield, Jeff Yeager and Nick Nelson in the #66 VRG Sport Dallara finished fourth, but two laps down. The team led seven laps, but ran out of time and full-course yellows to get back on the lead lap to compete for the win or a spot on the podium.
GSE Racing eSports and their #86 Dallara P217 earned a respectable top-five finish in a race that did not come easy to the German team at all after their sister car, the #21 GT PRO Audi slid across the grass after contact with another car, and made contact with them in a big crash, creating the worst nightmare for the two-car operating team.
In the end team-mates Thomas Beuchel, Christopher Seftel, Patrick Baerthel, Dennis Denicio and Luca Harmening must have felt like celebrating, working their way to a hard-earned top-five finish.
One of the numerous newcomers to the series, Rising Panda Racing and their #46 Dallara P217 stole the headlines in LMP2 class, leading a stunning 350 laps and showing the pace to win the race in their first attempt.
But bad luck struck the Austrian team with just over forty minutes remaining in the race. On the final restart of the race, the #100 Rookie Esports Dallara spun in turn one and Christian Campregher in the #46 Rising Panda machine had nowhere to go, crashing hard into the stationary car of Nick Dawson-Lathan.
In the end, the #46 car was scored in sixth place, nine laps down, marking a disappointing end to a very successful series debut for Campregher and team-mates Piers Stockton, Ryan Ware and Remy Loesch.
Rookie Esports’ #100 Dallara with Dawson-Lathan and his team-mates Rebeka Rennie and Spencer Torrance wound up seventh, eleven laps down.
One team that experienced a race that could easily be described as a bit of a nightmare, was the #777 Fusion Simsport Dallara.
On lap 647, with just over four hours remaining in the race, Brian Boomsma was unable to evade the spun #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche of Daniel Gruber in turn six, crashing hard into the GT machine and sustaining heavy damage.
The #777 car was already five laps down at that time, from an earlier incident, but this incident ended all hopes for the team to make a comeback before the race’s end. Crossing the checkers, the team earned P8, 13 laps down with drivers Dino Vela, Garren Batten, Brian Boomsma and Tom Guest leaving Daytona disappointed, following high hopes after starting from second position on the grid.
LMP2 pole sitters and winners of last weekend’s The Roar Before The 24, the #621 FRS SimSports Dallara was the final LMP2 class car to score championship points in the 24 Hours of Daytona, scoring 42nd place overall and P9 in class, 189 laps down.
Things were actually looking very good for the team out of Frankfurt, Germany. On lap 583 Ieuan Stichbury set the team’s fastest lap of the race at 1:35.038, holding third position at the time.
Just one lap later, the FRS SimSports Dallara P217 suddenly started to experience severe electrical issues, costing the team several laps. After an incident involving the #312 Lamborghini of Real Pixel Motorsports’ Wolfgang Wildenauer later in the race, the team eventually retired from the race, but by way of completing the mandatory 70% race distance, Stichbury along with his team-mates Kristof Gergely Bakos, Kyle Harkema and Mitchell van Winsum still scored championship points.
The #048 SCOWRS Esses Racing Dallara P217 of Kyle Gragner, Stephan Geschwind, Rein de Boer and Jory Maesen experienced a horrific crash during the night hours of the race, after a terminal mechanical failure on the car, plowing hard into the inside retaining wall out of T12, bouncing back onto the race track, only to get t-boned by the #84 Fischer Motorsport Porsche of Benjamin Fischer, ending the race for the former and taking the latter out of contention.
Gowin Racing leading the charge in the standings after Round 1
With championship round 1 of 10 complete, 24 Hours of Daytona champions #18 Gowin Racing lead the LMP2 series championship standings by eight points of runners-up #14 Fischer Motorsport.
“This win only drives us to keep that level of performance we had at Daytona. We recognize that there is a lot of strong competition in our class. With our roster of drivers, we know we are capable of strong finishes the remainder of the season. We may not be the best on some days, but we know that we'll fight to stay on top.”, said winner Nicholas Gowin.
Trailing in third place, 42 points behind the leaders sits #123 Tri-State Racing, followed by the #66 VRG Sport entry. Rising Panda Racing, despite the unfortunate ending in the race, left Daytona in a competitive spot in the standings, fourth and only 55 points out of the lead.
Gowin Racing atop Endurance Cup standings with near-perfect points haul
Scoring a near-perfect 20 Endurance Cup points in the season opener, #18 Gowin Racing hold an impressive four-point lead in the VSCA Endurance Cup with four more Endurance Cup races remaining in the season.
The highest-scored car at the 6-,12- and 18-hour mark and at the finish, scores five points respectively, which means the Gowin Racing Dallara was running in first place in all but one of the four scoring intervals of the 24-hour race.
The #46 Rising Panda Racing entry sits second, four points back and benefits from the special Endurance Cup points system that doesn’t put as much weight on the team’s late misfortune in the event.
Runners-up #14 Fischer Motorsport faces a significant gap of eight points but sits in third place, ahead of #100 Rookie Esports, who have had a wild season opener and sit in fourth place. Rounding out the top-five in Endurance Cup points is the #123 Tri-State Racing Dallara.
Change of pace, street circuit race at Long Beach up next
From the high-speed banks and infield of Daytona, the series now takes a three-week break before traveling to Long Beach, California for the second championship round on the famous street circuit.
A far cry from the longest race of the season that kicked off the new year, Long Beach will see a race distance of only one hour and forty minutes, making the MV Skinlab Grand Prix of Long Beach the first Sprint Cup race on the series’ calendar.
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