Punch it! It is time for a restart. Ricky Taylor leads but there's a five car wreck as we see a blocked track! Six cars. Two Mercedes, a Lamborghini, the #3 Corvette C8.R is involved in this thing. The debris is all over the road, like an airplane crash. The #57 Winward Mercedes, the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, the #32 Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes, the #42 NTE Sport Audi R8, and an absolutely destroyed #3 factory Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of Jordan Taylor! This was an enormous accident. No one was quite up to speed. We saw the #42 NTE Sport Audi of Don Yount involved. Russell Ward in the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3. Pick up the throttle, and, crunch! The same is true with Kyle Kirkwood in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Michele Beretta too, in the #19 GRT Grasser Racing Team entry, completely destroyed. This was an expensive scrapyard.
This is a short yellow. No pit stop ooportunities. It followed too close to the previous one. Half a dozen cars, game over. We can see the safety crews cleaning the wreckage up and putting speedy dry down on the track surface to sop up fluids from busted oiling systems and busted radiators after that crackup. We have the schedule for 2022 and the coverage we will have many opportunities to see on Peacock, NBC, and USA Network. We will have ten weeks between now and the start of next season. No real offseason to be honest. Teams will need to hustle. Everyone has been concentrating on their 2022 programs now for a month or two. They are preparing everything and we shall see what happens. The #42 NTE Sport Audi is now junk. That one will have to be rebuilt.
We are getting ever closer to the halfway mark in the race. To put a bow on the next generation NASCAR car, the transitions of the cars will be very interesting, and the only things the NASCAR cars don't have, are traction control and one other feature the sports cars do. Alexander Rossi is next up in the driver rotation in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. They are currently 59 points ahead of the #31 Whelen Engineering Action Express Cadillac. So, AXR must push if they want to win this championship, and they are fighters. They will not roll over and play dead, letting the #10 car whistle off into the distance.
Getting heat into the tires will be key with the cold temperatures we are seeing today and will see tonight here at Road Atlanta. Race Engineers will earn their money during this motor race. Be optimized and push, push, push. The moon has risen. Grab you jackets and gloves. Watch out for ghouls and goblins in those Georgia trees, the peach trees and whatnot. Yes, it is two weeks after Halloween, but at night in an endurance race, ghosts can come out and play with your mind as a driver and a team. Acura #10 is coming to the pit lane for something, maybe for scheduled service.
We have seen great performances at the races with fans back in spite of the pandemic's curse still being with us. Kyle Kirkwood says that unfortunately out of turn seven, full chat, they were screaming into turn ten, cresting the hill, and everyone was bunched into a wad. Kirkwood couldn't avoid the other cars and we had, as they call it in NASCAR, "the big one". It was a big accordion effect. Vasser Sullivan and Lexus will not be happy. Kirkwood will be a full-time IndyCar driver next year and he can focus on his open wheel career and be a part of racing at the Indianapolis 500 and he wants to continue too, in endurance racing, in the endurance events, in IMSA.
Go! Green flag back out! Ricky Taylor leads over Loic Duval and Mike Conway. Taylor, Duval, Conway, Montoya, the top four. We spent a half hour under yellow. Shade bathes its way across the road. Sunset coming very soon. The track temperature will plummet and the tires will be stone cold. Get heat into your tires, now. Turn 11 and 12 are extremely sketchy as Kamui Kobayashi, thankfully, he gets through it, flat out. Plant your foot and go for it. Turn ten is not the fastest turn on an IMSA track, but the brip, and the walls, are right there. You are off in the red Georgia clay if you aren't careful.
This is a gorgeous race track. The personality is still there, other than the turns ten A and ten B. Philipp Eng in the #25 BMW M8 GTE outbrakes the #79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Matthieu Jaminet. Jordan Taylor is treated and released from the medical center. He's fine, but he will be in a lot of pain tomorrow. Tommy Milner in the sole remaining #4 Corvette, he is monstering Matty Jaminet in the #79 WeatherTech Porsche 911 RSR-19. Porsche flat six vs. Corvette V8, the flat plane crankshaft 5.5 liter V8 in the rear of the C8.R. Ricky Taylor continues to lead as we are getting close. We are getting to halfway here. Ricky Taylor leads by a second over Loic Duval aboard the #5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac. This is the first time we have run this race in November.
This is a 2.54 mile course with 12 corners of course. The temperature again is going to plummet. The #31 Action Express Cadillac has a right rear tire going down. New tires and fuel. Conway back on track but he needs to warm the tires up and then aovid being lapped by the leading #10 car. On cold tires you can get wheel spin on the back straight. #31 needs to stay on the lead lap and get through this traffic. Ricky Taylor is over a second quicker than Mike Conway. #31 needs a Full Course Yellow to get back in the game.
Stay on the lead lap and fight it out. Still five hours and change to go. Focus forward. Loic Duval and the #5 Cadillac has nothing to lose after winning also, at Sebring back in March. Juan Pablo Montoya squeezes his way past the GTLM Porsche. Tommy Milner is catching Matthieu Jaminet hand over fist. What will "Jam Jam" do? Mazda #55 is chasing down the #48 Action Express/Hendrick Motorsports Ally Financial Cadillac as well as the sun sinks lower into the sky and is really playing havoc with the driver's field of vision at this point.
Ricky Taylor's lead margin has now ballooned to three seconds. The #31 Cadillac is still pushing. They are nearly a lap down after a deflating tire. The #31 could go a lap down, and they will have to catch a yellow flag to move back ahead. Making a mistake for fear of losing a lap, is worse than throwing the car off the road. Think up a creative strategy to get back in the game. Harry Tincknell ran his fastest lap, fastest lap of the motor race at 1:09.559. Who has set the car up patiently for the sunset? Be around and put yourself in position to capitalize on mistakes.
We have seen a number of long yellows. Right now, Action Express needs another yellow of some kind to get caught up. Everyone looks at overall lap time. In Free Practice, teams have to look at the individual sector times on track. Sector one, sector two, sector three, and add them together but don't show your hand. Hit the target lap time as comfortable as possible. Give up entry for exit as we see the #10 Acura into the pit lane for service. Alexander Rossi will get into the #10 car right at the halfway mark in the motor race.
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