Pirelli GT4 America race two is set to get underway here at Sonoma Raceway. It is a cool, crisp morning, with a huge field of cars on the grid as we join Ryan Myrehn, Calvin Fish, and Amanda Busick. There were tons of incidents yesterday. Matt Travis and Jason Hart are reunited in the #47 Nolasport Porsche Cayman. Canadian Jesse Webb along with Michai Stephens had a great race yesterday and they won. Random Vandals Racing, the reigning TC class champion Kevin Boehm will have Kenton Koch as his co-driver. They are running a Gen II BMW M4 GT4. We have a one hour race coming up with a mandatory driver change with a joker but no tire changes or fuel.
Two formation laps on this chilly day at Sonoma Raceway here in northern California. 42 cars starting. Sonoma Raceway is an extremely abrasive circuit. The professional driver has to leave the amateur something to fight with in terms of tires. Do not be selfish. You have to make compromises with your amateur co-driver. Be patient. Many savvy pros in this field. Sonoma Raceway has been around since 1968. Two and a half miles, 12 turns, and tons of elevation change. Nolasport won yesterday and are on pole. It will be Jason Hart vs. Kay van Berlo with John Geesbreght in third spot.
Reining Porsche Carrera Cup champion Parker Thompson who is also racing in a GT3 championship elsewhere, is another big name in this field driving a Toyota Supra GT4. 44 cars I should say, starting this race. Jason Hart vs. Kay van Berlo. Here comes the field. Crawling to the front straight and they flyu into turn one and Jason hart has no pressure. John Geesbreght up to second already. Single file through turn four, settling in and gaining tire temperature. Jason Hart takes off. Everyone is all over the pace finding the groove. Andy Lee in the Aston Martin, the 5.11 Tactical sponsored Aston Martin making a move on Michai Stephens or trying to.
Through the chicane at turn nine. Andy Lee is going for it as the BMW M4 GT4 Generation II model of Kenton Koch, he his being pressed by Michai Stephens. Still side by side and Koch stuffs it in. Stephens fighting and Andy Lee has a bird's eye view! Stephens sends it on the cushion and Stephens is going for it big style! Terry Borcheller is passed for position. Check that, it could be Nick Shanny. No. It is Borcheller as the Flying Lizard Aston Martin spins, car #09. Christian Ruppel and Eric Zitza. That is the Zotz Racing Team Aston Martin. Kay van Berlo is trying to recover and muscles by John Geesbreght.
He will be noticed if he can stay with a veteran like Kay van Berlo through The Carousel. Kenton Koch on the defensive as Michai Stephens is solving the riddle with Andy Lee in the fight. But this is a blend of Pro-Am and Silver drivers. Parker Thompson, Jason Hart, they are in it, too. All GT4 cars but in different driver rating classes. Koch, Stephens, Lee, three experienced pro drivers scrapping for position. Stephens has a Captain Cook for position but not this time. These three have fallen down the order. Jason Hart has started the #47 car. Kenton Koch is the engine of this freight train pulling freight cars through The Carousel.
Stephens is going to go for it on the outside! Koch has to send it and he does. Can Andy Lee do likewise? Terry Borcheller and Andrew Davis also pushing hard, a couple more savvy veterans. Koch in deep! Three wide. Stephens and Lee going for it and they fit three cars itno turn 11. Holy cow. Stephens grabs the spot followed by Lee! Holy moly! The Toyota Supra's are there in the fight. Poor old Kenton Koch is a fish out of water and here comes Parker Thompson and Terry Borcheller, too! Koch has to go defensive into turn seven. Parker Thompson right on his six. Focus forward but your head is on a pivot.
Jaden Conwright, too, sharing with Anderson Tanoto is also in the fight in another Toyota Supra. Jason Hart leads and cuts a 1:48 dead but Kay van Berlo is 3/10ths quicker per lap in second spot. Hart leads by nearly three and a half seconds and John Geesbreght also overhauled van Berlo. Kenton Koch continues to lead in the Silver class. John Geesbreght leads Michai Stephens, Andy Lee, and Kenton Koch. Stephens is trying to gap the field for Jesse Webb when he gets into the car for the second half of the race. The leader's are in the 1:47-1:48 bracket while Geesbreght is clocking in 1:49s. Aaron Povoledo teaming up with Ross Chouest is pushing and so is the Porsche Cayman of Andrew Davis and Tyler McQuarrie driving the #82 Bimmerworld BMW M4 GT4.
Jaden Conwright tries to pass Kenton Koch who is sharing with Kevin Boehm the touring car champion in SRO in recent years now moving to GT4. Jaden Conwright ran for Lamborghini or was affiliated for a while. He may or may not still be. He has run in other championships. He was a Lamborghini junior driver in GT3. Canadian Matt Clark running U.S. F2000 and could be an IndyCar star in a few years, also racing sports cars. Kenton Koch gives him space. Supra, Mercedes, Aston Martin. Pit window will open in ten or so minutes. Aaron Povoledo sharing with Ross Chouest is racing Matt Clark.
Someone brakes deep and it is Chandler Hull who is also racing in the GT3 car later on. He is racing for STR38 in this series, one of his rival teams in GTWC America. Carter Fartuch has moved up to GT4 from touring cars as well. He was called up to race for Skip Barber Racing School running in TC America. He is sharing with Matt Forbush who is now a driver instead of being both a driver and owner. John Geesbreght is ten seconds down on Kay van Berlo. Andy Lee is chasing position in GT4. Matt Clark monstering Aaron Povoledo as well.
Chandler Hull and Tyler McQuarrie are pushing each other hard. No difference in the cars, just in the FIA driver ratings here in GT4 America. Michai Stephens loves the outside making his move on Terry Borcheller. Yikes! Borcheller is now right with this bunch with 42 minutes remaining. Kevin Boehm has been coming to grips with the brand new BMW M4 G82 model. He and the team are playing the long game. Boehm of course sharing with Kenton Koch. Andy Lee is making a pas or trying to, on John Geesbreght. Terry Borcheller behind these two.
Borcheller is leading the Am class. They have a massive gap over the #35 Conquest Racing Mercedes AMG GT4. Under 40 minutes to go and five minutes away from opening the pit window. Drivers will stay in the car deep into the pit window before handing over to their co-drivers. Andy Lee will not be doing any favors for Terry Borcheller and you know he also wants by John Geesbreght as well. Trouble on the front stretch for Kay van Berlo! He is stopped and cannot get restarted. We are going to see a delay in the pit window with a Full Course Yellow! Oh man! We have yet to see if there will be a safety car.
Can Kay van Berlo get that car back running? He is doing a Control, Alt, Delete but it is not working. Geesbreght wants a yellow. Lee is pressing it down the inside but no dice. Borcheller is goign for it and now we are under the safety car. Well, well, well. Kay van Berlo starts rolling too! By criminy! That was weird! With the yellow, the pit window is going to be delayed. Jason Hart leads Michai Stephens and Jesse Webb will get into the car. He is someone to look out for as we saw in yesterday's race.
Green flag as we have just over half this race remaining. Side by side between Lee and Geesbreght! This is a change for second. A positional change for second in one of the classes. Not sure which one and a huge spin with copious tire smoke for it looks like John Geesbreght! It is John Geesbreght, spun off in The Carousel! Not a good position to be in at all. The pit window just opened and now tow more cars have spun! Synchronized spinning and shedloads of opposite lock for Lee Carpentier and one other driver as the leaders were forcing their way through!
Full Course Yellow. Close the pit window. Those diving for the lane will not be able to do service. Random Vandals, Conquest Racing, and others are totally caught out. I wonder, in replay, if Parker Thompson in one of the other Toyota Supra's tagged John Geesbreght? That is a fair question. We can see the damage to the #999 Toyota Supra. That is the TGR Hanley Motorsports car being shared by American Daniel Hanley and the aforementioned Parker Thompson from Canada. That wreck right in the middle of the pack could have been much worse. Thompson turned Geesbreght and Geesbreght clouted the wall.
You are up on the wheel and cresting the hill. Left front suspension broken for Kenton Koch and Kevin Boehm who finished on the podium in yesterday's race. Even with a DNF you can still score some points. That car is a Silver graded entry I believe. They are drivers who you think will be consistent and get points finishes through the year. If we keep going under yellow they could get some assistance on the points front for the season. A ton to sort through with all of this. Once we went back to green, pit lane could have been opened, but it was closed after the incidents.
Paul Sparta from Random Vandals Racing says the new BMW M4 GT4 is a great car, albeit needing a tad more power. Both cars out. They got hit and Kenton Koch had no place to go. They will be back next time out in New Orleans. We look at the replay and Kenton Koch had no place to go when coming into contact with the two spinning cars including Lee Carpentier in the second Nolasport Porsche. 25 minutes now remaining in the race. Once the wreckage is cleared up, the pit window will open again after the restart. It will be open for nine minutes and three seconds.
This is the worst case scenario working around the pit window and the safety car scramble. Ugh. This also extends the opening stint into the second stint which will be much shorter for the second drivers. The other drivers will have to push immediately. The double yellow flags were displayed and many cars made up positions into the chicane, the hairpin actually. Safety car lights off. OK. We ar going back to green with 23 minutes left. Green flag. Jason Hart leading Michai Stephens, and more. The top ten is Jason Hart, Jesse Webb, Andy Lee, Nick Shanny, Chandler Hull, Matt Clark, Tyler McQuarrie, Carter Fartuch, Andrew Davis, and Zack Anderson.
Green flag. The pit lane opens next time by. There is crossover between the classes and lots of dynamics at play. How will the team play the strategy? They could extend the stints of their opening drivers but you run the risk of another yellow throwing a curveball. Zack Anderson will turn the Auto Technic BMW over to John Capestro Dubets. The pit window has just opened with 22 minutes to go. It will be nine minutes. The leader stays out. Michai Stephens brings the Silver class leading Mercedes in and Jesse Webb will take over. Anderson will hand off to John Capestro Dubets. Matt Clark will hand over to Rob Ferriol.
These teams are covering themselves against another potential Full Course Yellow. Jesse Webb making the transition to GT4 from Canadian stock car racing and the Canadian Nissan Sentra Cup to the GT4 ranks in SRO America. What can Webb do? Paulo Carasci is in the car after Custodio Toledo finishes his stint. Andy Lee might stay in the car but I think Elias Sabo still needs to drive. Not everyone is pitting even with less than 20 minutes to go. 19 minutes and change. The leaders are catching the group that just came off the pit lane. In traffic, the pit stop delta of 92 seconds is close to a full lap time around Sonoma Raceway. Andy lee is balked and so is Terry Borcheller! Contact between The Heart of Racing and Flying Lizard!
Andy Lee is doing all he can and does make the pass. Jason Hart coming to the lane this lap. Did they wait too long? Andy Lee is another Pro-Am car who did the same ting. Andy Lee stays out. Borcheller stays out as well in the Toyota Supra. Paolo Carasci is staying out and Custodio Toledo I think is in the car right now. Hart into the box. Matt Travis will get into the car. Jesse Webb is up to speed. I think Nolasport will beat Webb. Travis is in front. But it is not for class position. Nolasport lead Pro-Am. Conquest lead Silver. Andy Lee stays out. Thomas Blam, Flying Lizard team strategist is here this weekend. Terry Borcheller is leading overall but needs a pit stop.
The same is true for the second place driver currently, Carter Fartuch. Eric Powell, Aaron Povoledo, and Tyler Stone who is aboard the second of the two new TechSport Racing Nissan Z Nismo GT4's. That team has cars #22 and #23 with the brand new GT4 Nissan Z car. #22 being shared by Colin Harrison and Eric Powell while #23 has Bryan Heitkotter and Tyler Stone. This is the lap you have to go into the pits. Three cars into one cornetr coming to the hairpin and that's not going to work! Ker-runch! That's a heavy impact for two cars that have a massive clatter into the barriers.
The barrier is moved back and this is bad news for those who have not pitted. You are toast if you cannot get to the lane before the safety car deploys. Borcheller is a lucky luck boy and just had his bacon saved diving for the lane as did one of the Aston Martin's. Cannot tell which one, however. Fartuch and Povoledo are in the lane as well as the safety car is indeed scrambled. Here's it all again in slow motion. The #36 Bimmerworld BMW M4 GT4 of James Clay and Charlie Postins is involved in this mess. They were the 2022 Pirelli GT4 America Am class champions.
A subtle tap led to a massive impact with the wall. The Skip Barber team is in the lane as Matt Forbush steps into the car after Carter Fartuch finishes his stint. This is the debut of the Skip Barber Racing School team's GT4 program. Confirmed that it was Charlie Postins who crashed the BMW for Bimmerworld. He is climbing out of the car under his own steam so that is a good sign. #36 drifts toward the middle of the road and he plows into the barriers! Ouch! The other car we saw in that mess was the RennSport1 Porsche Cayman #18 of Austin and Roland Krainz.
There was a third car involved, the bright green Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the hands of Todd Coleman and Billy Johnson, the #069 Archangel Motorsports car. This is a steward's nightmare and hopefully they have no immediate flights home because they'll have comb through this lot for a whole evening. Grab some coffee and some snacks. You might be up a while. 11 and a half minutes to go in this motor race. We still have a Fanatec GT World Challenge America race for the GT3 cars to get to. Man, oh man. What a day!
I think a few cars that had yet to stop have been caught out by the timing of this specific safety car. How will this all come out in the wash? The question becomes what happens with the cleanup? Charlie Postins is fine. The barrier will have to be moved to make it flush with the rest of the wall in the next ten minutes if we are going to go back to green. Plus they have cars to clear away and off the track. Aye yaye yaye. Did the #999 Hanley Motorsports Toyota Supra make it to the pit lane with Daniel Hanley at the wheel of it? Hanley is the erstwhile leader and that is why I ask. Nick Shanny and Terry Borcheller did make their pit stop and Shanny is at the wheel now to the end of the race.
Ross Chouest, Matt Forbush, Colin Harrison, these are some of the drivers we wonder about and the same is true for the recently aforementioned Techsport Racing Nissan. This is a head scratcher with eight minutes left on the board. #999 has the track position. Nick Shanny leads the Am division, and is the fourth car in line. That is car #20, the TGR Carrus Callas Race Team Toyota Supra. #999 had to pit then because it was Parker Thompson driving. They still need to make their official pit stop and tried going off strategy due to contact which puts them completely out of sequence.
They are in a massive world of pain because they did not complete their mandatory pit stop within the window which is now closed. #253 and the Archangel Aston Martin are a lap down. #253 is the second Auto Technic Racing BMW M4 GT4 Gen II in the hands of Satakal Khalsa and Rob Walker. I just don't think we are going to restart. No one has moved Charlie Postins' car yet and the wall is catawampus. I don't think the Toyota that has not pitted yet, will be able to serve their official pit stop and therefore they will cop a time penalty. Aaron Povoledo is now in the Chouest Povoledo Aston Martin to take the car to the flag.
We saw Ross Chouest have a good run this morning in the single driver GT America race. At the back of the queue is the new GT4 Nissan Z car. Two of them running with Techsport Racing. Nissan engineers and executives are here to see the car debut. I think this is the first race for the car in GT4 spec but this is a very young program. There was a non homologated new Z car that did race in Japan. At #999, they say they are in good shape. parker Thompson says there were cars fast and slow both, and they were trying to protect their spot. He feels for the Smooge Racing guys.
He did not hear anything on the radio and now, co-driver Daniel Hanley will bring it home. Pit lane was closed according to the info we have on the broadcast and what I am hearing there. The pits were indeed open. But by the time he got to the pit lane that the pit lane closed again. Sheesh! There was 51 seconds between telling us it was open or closed. #999 post-race penalty for not fulfilling pit stop requirements, direct from SRO Race Control. OK. We will not restart this motor race even though the incident has been cleaned up and the wall still needs to be fixed. Therefore, I think we are going to finish the race under yellow.
Terry Borcheller and Nick Shanny could win. However, we shall use a large asterisk for now. Let's see. Maybe just maybe an Am class car will win overall and I don't believe that has ever happened in SRO America before. So, let's see how the winners will come out. The clock has run out. We believe Nick Shanny and Terry Borcheller are going to win this race. Terry Borcheller has won the 24 Hours of Daytona overall twice. Once with Bell Motorsports and once with my pals at Action Express Racing. Checkered flag. Terry Borcheller, Nick Shanny, and Carrus Callas win Am. Chouest Povoledo win Pro/Am and Conquest Racing with Michai Stepens and Jesse Webb win Silver!
Overall/Am: #20 Borcheller/Shanny TGR Carrus Callas Race Team Toyota GR Supra GT4
Pro-Am: #50 Chouest/Povoledo Chouest Povoledo Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4
Silver: #35 Carcasci/Toledo Conquest Racing Mercedes AMG GT4
The next races for Pirelli GT4 America are in the bayou country, in the Big Easy, in New Orleans, Louisiana, actually Avondale, Louisiana, at NOLA Motorsports Park at the end of this month on the 29th and 30th of April. Laissez les bontemps roulez! We'll see you in New Orleans! For now,l so long everybody. Take care.
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