To introduce this first event of the weekend for SRO America, I simply have to paraphrase Ryan Myrehn's intro to GT World Challenge America qualifying to set the scene for this weekend's action. Mr. Myrehn provides a brilliant glimpse of what New Orleans as a place in our country and our world is all about. "New Orleans, Louisiana. Home to Bourbon Street, beignets, and bacchanalia. This weekend, it is also home to the cars and the stars of SRO America. We are just eight miles south and west, as the crow flies, from 'The Big Easy.'" Round three of GT America at NOLA, is set to begin. We are ready to race in the Louisiana bayou on a flat, fast 2 and 3/4 mile track eight miles out from downtown New Orleans. Let's go racing on the bayou! Laissez les bontemps rouler!
We have a great grid of cars ready to compete. Memo Gidley leads the GT3 class in GT America and we have a 22 car grid for this event this weekend. Memo Gidley scored fastest lap at St. Petersburg and won the race at Sonoma. Will veteran drivers like Jason Daskalos, or Memo Gidley have anything? What about Jason Bell? This championship might just go to the wire. The GT3 class is going to be fun to watch. This track was not on the GT America calendar in 2022. It is flat, fast, and abrasive. That is what we will deal with. The track has good grip but it is very abrasive and will be like a cheese grater on the Pirelli P Zero tires and we are going to see marbles ahoy offline, the little pieces of rolled up rubber that come off the tires just like when you use a pencil eraser and there are shavings all over the paper.
Watch for a one groove race track partciularly through the esses. SRO America commentators Calvin Fish and Amanda Busick along with broadcast producer Michael Scott took a tour of the Louisiana swamp the evening before the race. Wow. That had to be a hoot! Sounds like they saw the alligators in the bayou. Anyhow, Elias Sabo is the GT4 pole man. He had a bad race in one of the other categories in 2022 but is ready to go and can find a rhythm on this course. He will be driving right on the ragged edge on pole for the GT4 class. Dave Traitel, the owner of TKO Motorsports and the #101 Mercedes AMG GT3 that Memo Gidley drives, could not be here in NOLA this weekend after surgery. Get well soon.
Memo Gidley is running on this team in association with Flying Lizard Motorsports. Adam Adelson, too, has taken to the Porsche 911 GT3R like a duck to water driving for Wright Motorsports. The cars are on the second of two formation laps before we get started this afternoon. Lots of strong cars are in this race this weekend. A lot of great cars and great drivers ready to race including Johnny O'Connell, four-time SRO World Challenge champion. Four GT titles on the trot in the Pirelli World Challenge days in Pirelli World Challenge for Cadillac.
Memo Gidley on the pole with two wins and four podiums. Adam Adelson, GT3 rookie, at his elbow. At Sonoma, a tech infraction demoted Adelson to the back of the grid. Safety car lights off. The field forming int two by two formation through turns 15 and 16. Green flag! It's go time on the bayou! The abttle is for third and fourth and a lockup for Adelson into turn one with Jason Daskalos and Anthony Bartone next up and Daskalos shoves Adelson out of the way! In GT4, the hometown hero Ross Chouest is turning it on early trying to make his move on Elias Sabo with Todd Coleman giving chase along with Jason Bell and Robb Holland. Holland in the Porsche Cayman.
There is a whole train of the Aston Martin Vantage GT4's. Gidley looks as though he has already left this field in SRO3 for dead as George Kurtz clobbers a massive bump in the middle of the track. NOLA is flat but there are undulating bumps all over the place as Mirco Schultis is flying in the Mother's Polish Callaway Corvette C7 GT3. He is in eighth overall and in SRO3 with Todd Treffort applying the pressure, learning how to race wheel to wheel after being a vintage and historic car racer for many years.
Typically, Treffort would be racing a classic car at the Walter Mitty vintage races at Road Atlanta but he is indeed here in full metal racing at NOLA Motorsports Park as we speak. Robb Holland wants a bite of the cherry racing after Todd Coleman who has moved over to the Aston Martin from driving the Toyota Supra in 2022. Jason Bell, the current points leader, and he is going to go for it. He was making a move at Sonoma and crashed out after trying to get by a driver who is not a full season entrant.
A great duel between Anthony Bartone and George Kurtz in two of the Mercedes AMG GT3's. Kurtz has plenty of experience in a GT3 Mercedes while Bartone is still learning the car and how to be a road racer, a sports car racer. Johnny O'Connell is learning his competition. He said the only driver in the field today that he has raced against at all is Memo Gidley. The drivers use a lot of curbs and the curbs on this course are unique and the car has to be compliant over these curbs and again, watch out for the tire clag for a handful of corners. Be disciplined even though we are racing a short sprint at 40 minutes. Gidley putting daylight between himself and Jason Daskalos in second but Daskalos has uncorked the fastest lap of the race thus far.
The grid for race two is set by fastest laps from race one and you have to lay one down and then look out for your tires. This is a high tire degradation circuit as we have already seen. Elias Sabo leads GT4 over the similar Aston Martin in the hands of Ross Chouest. Chouest's family were a major part of building this track at NOLA and so he knows the place like the back of his hand. He is the 2022 GT4 champion in GT America through consistency and not winning until sweeping the weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His uncle Laney is the motorsports maverick in a family of basketball players. He had very little experience here at first.
It was a late call to race here with the SRO and all their classes, cars, drivers, and teams, after a race scheduled at the Ozarks International Raceway in Gravois Mills, Missouri, was cancelled. A small bobble for Coleman and he has to defend against Jason Bell guarding the line into turn one, a fast right hand turn at 90 degrees. Then it leads into the esses. They love the precision to get lap time around this place like a slalom skier hitting the apexes. CRP has history racing the Mercedes AMG GT3 with Ryan Dalziel, Daniel Morad, and Michael Cooper, in the DevilBiss colors. The team owned by Nick Short moved from North Carolina, to Sarasota, Florida, at the behest of driver Jason Daskalos.
Coleman now just has enough of an edge over Bell who wants this pass and wants it to work now. He is not waiting, holding back, biding his time. The shark has targeted the minnow. Coleman has the pace with Mike Johnson engineering the car. He is co-driving with Billy Johnson in the Pirelli GT4 America race later on. Coleman has more steam than Bell through this next section of the course and Bell tucks it into the third corner into turn four. Holland too, wants to pounce, look. Coleman vs. Bell and here comes Holland with a head of steam. Sabo and Chouest are motoring away at the top of the shop.
Keep your rhythm. Don't force the issue. Bide your time. But we are already 1/4 of the way through this race at least. Almost halfway home. Stay close through the double apex at turns 15 and 16. Great drivers are coaches in this paddock like Aaron Telitz, Billy Johnson, Michael Cooper and Andrew Davis. Cooper is working with Jason Bell. Jason Daskalos is being harried now by Adam Adelson who is closing in. This very Porsche that Adam Adelson is driving in GT America, he will also race later today in Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS alongside Elliott Skeer. He has to be very careful.
Daskalos though is in the championship fight here in GT America. They pass Paul Kiebler at the wheel of the #77 TR3 Racing Aston Martin Vantage. Kiebler in a different car but running as a teammate to Ziad Ghandour in the #9 Mercedes AMG GT3. Off the road, look, speaking of Aston Martin is Elias Sabo in the #8 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin! Yikes! Sabo off the road and this ought to give the lead to Ross Chouest and Nick Shanny is back there in the Toyota Supra. He and Terry Borcheller had a shocking Pirelli GT4 America win at Sonoma Raceway earlier in the year. Elias Sabo, meanwhile, he has flown Plummet Airways from the lead of the GT4 field down to eighth spot.
Coleman and Bell are now scrapping for second and third spot and Robb Holland is reeling in both of them. Memo Gidley, too, is being steadily reeled in by Jason Daskalos. The gaps are closing up. We are closing up on the halfway mark of this 40-minute sprint and now Bell has passed Coleman and Holland vollows him through! Coleman wriggled his way through the esses. Coleman is off the road in the marbles! Yikes! So, Todd Coleman regroups and he is going to be driving angry, maybe. Coleman needs to get into a rhythm again and manage his tires. This is seven seconds down the road as Ross Chouest is whistling off into the distance.
He is looking for a win at his home track here at NOLA. Coleman's car has been erratically handling through this race as we watch Tony Gaples in the top five. Gaples tested here in his new GT4 spec Chevrolet Camaro. They dealt with technical issues at the test session. However, do not count out the #5 Blackdog Speed Shop car. Team boss at Blackdog Speed Shop Ray Sorenson has said the team is struggling, however, they are on a mission to find the speed and it seems as though that is true and Gaples is giving it everything.
Memo Gidley still leads by one second over Jason Daskalos. Elias Sabo's car might have debris in the grille. Watch the water temperature gauge. He seems fine and is working on going for pole for race two. On Friday here in New Orleans we saw 90 degree ambient temperatures and during the race it is only in the mid 70s at around 76 degrees. Jason Bell moves out of the way letting Memo Gidley to move by and scamper away from Daskalos and Adelson. Sabo in the meantime, his tires might be becoming ratty and he is going to be dealing with an identical GT4 Aston Martin of Gray Newell here in a wee while.
After three or four laps of qualifying the grip goes away and the personal best sector times disappear on this abrasive surface as Adelson dives inside of Bell in a battle not for position. Again, the surface is like a cheese grater on the tires, like if you take a block of cheese and shred it for making tacos or nachos or something. Through traffic, Elias Sabo has eaten away about three seconds of the margin between he and Gray Newell. SKI Autosport and Johnny O'Connell and their Ferrari 458 Italia are running well. SKI = Spending our Kids Inheritance. Three focuses, don't hit anything, or break anything, and stay on the track.
Johnny O'Connell and Calvin Fish have known each other for a long, long time and they were fierce competitors in the Atlantics championship in 1987. This Ferrari 458 is an older generation car just like the Callaway C7 Corvette. Thr technology of ABS and traction control has come on leaps and bounds in the last decade since this car was built with team boss Phil Creighton, a man who Calvin Fish drove for when he started racing in the states in the mid 1980s. This championship is geared towards Bronze rated drivers. Gidley and O'Connell are career racing drivers and due to their age, they are able to race in this category.
It is a great place for older drivers who have been in motorsports for a long time. Gidley now leads Daskalos by five seconds. Anthony Bartone is next up, road racing as a part of a drag racing family. He is being mentored by Andy Pilgrim with RealTime Racing and team boss Nathan Bonneau. George Kurtz, 2022 GT America champion by 151 points is being harried by Johnny O'Connell for fifth place. Just 17 minutes left on the clock now. He was sideways through turn 14. Todd Treffert is seventh at the wheel of the #41 Lone Star Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo. Johnny O'Connell is getting used to getting back to being a racing driver.
Kenton Koch shook down both of Lone Star Racing's cars and it sounds like Koch will team up with Treffert in GT World Challenge America later in the year. Watch this space. Ross Chouest still leading GT4 but the gap to Jason Bell has come down and Bell in the similar GT4 spec Aston Martin is making inroads. Bell is going to keep whittling away time to Chouest with just over 15 minutes on the board before race one of the weekend for GT America is done and dusted. This is a reprise of the GT America championship battle from a year ago in 2022. Bell himself is the 2021 champion in SRO GT America. So, it has been a major scrap between the two most recent title holders in the series.
Robb Holland was a contender both seasons and is still at it in this race, chasing down the front two. Aston Martin in sheer numbers are dominant in GT4. No weak links and a compliant race car around this circuit. We are now looking again at Adam Adelson closing up on Jason Daskalos for second spot and Memo Gidley is on a Saturday drive. He is opening a margin and running competitive lap times. Adelson of course has very limited GT3 experience and he did race at the 24 Hours of Dubai back in January but is now really coming to grips with a GT3 car. Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer actually swept both of the Pirelli GT4 America races here at NOLA last year.
On second thought, that could very well have been in a GT4 car. Me memory is a tad rusty. During the rain delay last year here at NOLA, Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer, had a chance to get together and watch a film called "Operation Mincemeat" about a WW. II. operative. Any movie buffs out there, if you have information on "Operation Mincemeat", let me know. In the meantime, Todd Treffert is still giving Johnny O'Connell a fair old run for his money. Treffert is now learning from a master as of course Johnny O'Connell has been around for years with the Corvette and Cadillac teams even back into his days racing a GTS class Nissan 300ZX Turbo in the old IMSA Exxon Supreme GTS series in the first incarnation of IMSA in the early 1990s.
Johnny O'Connell is not going to give Too Treffert any racing room whatsoever. But O'Connell is struggling with the handling on that Ferrari 458. In vintage racing you really are supposed to not make contact with anyone because it is for exhibition and the cars are priceless. Treffert to the inside and O'Connell is indeed feeling the heat. The Ferrari has the straight line speed even lacking downforce compared to the newer generation GT3 cars but O'Connell's tires are also getting ratty. The Mercedes has the power, not necessarily the straight line speed, but the power and the cornering capability that maybe the decade plus old Ferrari platform does not have.
No grip through the chicane and Treffert has a lunge and makes it stick. So, O'Connell is being treated to the rough end of the pineapple here at least briefly. This is for P6 with ten minutes to go. Treffert now must make up ten seconds to come onto terms with George Kurtz ahead. That may be a tall drink of water with just ten minutes left on the board before the race is over. GT America competition has stepped up to another level. George Kurtz has had it all his own way in this class over the years but not in 2023. He knows that the competition has really stepped up to the plate. Kurtz is stuck behind Nick Shanny's GT4 Toyota Supra. Kurtz and Colin Braun run competitively in Fanatec GT World Challenge America.
Adelson doing all he can, flashing the lights, trying to get into Jason Daskalos' mind. Daskalos has raced front engine sports cars before and spent a lot of time in the 2010s and into the teens at the wheel of Dodge Viper's. Adelson though is right on his six and is going to pounce. One false move from Daskalos and the battle will be well and truly on. Tire degradation is indeed a factor. Bartone is coming in a hurry too. He is in the RealTime Racing/Bartone Brothers Racing Mercedes with car #427 on it. His dad, Tony Bartone is a drag racing legend with Top Alcohol Funny Car.
Bartone wants a real victory and did get a win after a tech infraction for Wright Motorsports. Daskalos is backing Adelson into Bartone as we speak. Elias Sabo up to seventh was starting to pressurize Tony Gaples before they were lapped by the SRO3 leaders. Stay online and don't run wide whatever you do because you will be off into the marbles and into the grass and hopefully not into the Armco right next to the road. Bartone is getting hungry. He wants a bite of the cherry over Adelson. One sweet, juicy cherry, coming up. Bartone working the racing line searching for exit speed off the corners. Adelson now the hunter while Daskalos is without doubt the hunted.
Downforce is aided by the heavy, dense, humid air here in the deep south in the Louisiana bayou. Adelson is stymied now behind Daskalos. You know Daskalos is looking for a clean run through the traffic. That is precisely what he wants. Gray Newell moves out of the way of the leadrrs. Bartone has to watch out for the marbles. Daskalos making savvy moves in traffic for second place. The chess match in traffic has to be well controlled. Gray Newell now fourth in class and Gaples was passed by Sabo. Gidley is 11 and a half seconds ahead and it is anyone's race race between Daskalos, Adelson, and Bartone. NOLA is a very rough track indeed especially on the edge of track limits.
Todd Coleman went off the road and had to go to the pit lane. Another lapped car in the way and Bartone passes Adelson and here comes George Kurtz! Two laps left as Kurtz sweeps past Adelson who in turn sends Bartone nearly off into no man's land! Kurtz gains two places in one turn! He will be right in Daskalos' six. There could be rain around the circuit approaching the white flag and massive contact there between Bartone and Kurtz! They continue but the positions have changed. Here's it all again, and looming to the inside, he caught the grass did Bartone, and crunched into Kurtz.
Now, both car continue but Adam Adelson has a get out of jail free card there too. Windscreen wipers engaged and the rain si coming here in New Orleans. It is that Tom Petty song "Louisiana Rain". Daskalos does not have a reprieve and Adelson is getting after it and keeping the energy in his Pirelli P Zero tires. Final turn for the final time and Gidley wins for the third time in 2023! Dave Traitel, team boss, will be happy, as he is recovering from surgery.
Ross Chouest holds on for the GT4 victory and it is a drag racing between Gray Newell and Robb Holland. Newell nips him! Photo finish! Wow! From the back of the pack to third place and there was the width of a cigarette paper, jumping out of the seat! Todd Coleman trying to recover and working on debutant driver Matt Joffe. Ross Chouest is the GT4 winner. Joffe will have just enough to beat Coleman to the line. Coleman went off the road another time. Memo Gidley wins his third race in five races run in 2023. He has not yet been off the podium either.
Overall/SRO3: #101 Memo Gidley TKO Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo
GT4: #50 Ross Chouest Chouest Povoledo Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4
More GT America action to come tomorrow on Sunday here in New Orleans. We'll see you tomorrow. But, stay tuned, because there are tons more races yet to come today on Saturday.
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