Welcome back to the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. We are set to go for the second and final race of the weekend for SRO GT America powered by AWS with a mix of older and newer generation GT3 cars in SRO3, and GT4 cars, to do battle once more on the streets of the Music City. Will Johnny O'Connell and SKI Autosport triumph again? Will there be a new driver, team, and car combination in the winners' circle? Stay tuned for the next 40 minutes to find out. For the third year, Music City welcomes the cars and stars of GT America, set to race through the streets and over the Cumberland River, within the town, the honky tonks and bars. We join Ryan Myrehn and Bob Varsha in the broadcast booth and Amanda Busick in the pit lane.
This afternoon it is hot and humid in Nashville, 92 degrees Fahrenheit with a heat index of 98 degrees. Robb Holland in GT4, is ready to go and wants to win again, winning a possible fourth race on the streets of Nashville with a perfectly dialed in race car. Skimming the walls, maximizing corner radius, clicking the mirrors on the walls. That is how you drive a street course especially here at Nashville. Jason Bell is looking for "clean points" as in not taking any chances and the key is to finish. It will be a hot race. The drivers have their cool suits on, and the drivers have been hydrating like mad. The cool suit keeps your core cool so you can focus on driving around the circuit.
Taking chances and absolutely going for it is the order of the day. Reigning champion Ross Chouest tells us that everyone is facing the same challenge in GT4 against the GT3 cars. Great to hear from three of the top drivers. Jason Bell and Ross Chouest have both won championships in this category. Two of the three drivers come from areas where heat is common. Florida is where Jason Bell calls home and Ross Chouest is from New Orleans, Louisiana. This track is one you have to see to truly appreciate and we did so yesterday in the track map and preview. It is an amazing circuit.
The city of Nashville has seen a lot of things since it's founding in 1779 but not a lot of road racing until 2021 except for the oval track heritage with the stock cars. Seven cars in each class, but of the 14 cars in the field, most of the championship contenders are here even with a small field, you cannot get away from your competition. It is a wash. We are less than five minutes away from go time. Some drivers are not here due to other races this weekend. But, still, the field is extremely competitive. Jason Daskalos is hungry for victory.
Johnny O'Connell had the hardest win lately in his career and remember his lit number plate fell off the windscreen and was flashing in his eyes. Memo Gidley, the SRO3 points leader, is going for a clean race today. He was scrapping with the fellow Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Jason Daskalos. The Corvette C7 GT3 of Mirco Schultis, he has no cooling or coolsuit and was suffering heavily with cockpit temperatures of 160 degrees Fahrenheit with that giant V8 motor right in front of him. Same for the Mercedes, I am sure. It was such a bizarre situation yesterday with the strobe light effect, of welcome to the disco in the cockpit. Gracious me!
Talk about confusion and disorientation. Great street course racers include Formula 1 driver Sergio Perez, drivers in Formula E who compete almost exclusively on street courses. The command is given. Shawn Rogers of SRO gives the command. Gentleman, start your engines! Al Unser Jr. drove fabulously on the streets of Long Beach, and we cannot forget Australian Supercars star turned NASCAR Cup Series winner in Chicago, Shane van Gisbergen. Businessman Rusty Bittle who is one of the drivers in these races this weekend, he is actually a part of, and advertising a new racetrack being built here in Tennessee. Look for the Flat Rock Motorsports Complex, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
That ought to be fascinating. We have 14 cars in the field this morning. Totally different sight lines and a dry race in store. It was wet building up yesterday and dry for the different races. We have tons of different brands in this race, one after another. If there is not something for you in the field, I don't know what to say. There are some cool cars and we will see the field align and take the green flag coming the other way on the Korean War Veterans Memorial bridge. The finish of the race happens on the pit straightaway as we get ready to turn them loose.
It is a rough course here in Nashville and 40 minutes of racing in the heat will be wild. Here comes the field for a start. Green flag. Punch it! Go! Jason Daskalos goes right ahead of Johnny O'Connell, Memo Gidley and Mirco Schultis as the GT4 cars take the start and Ross Chouest looking feisty already in the red Aston Martin bearing down on Robb Holland in the Porsche Cayman. He has grabbed the second spot away from Jason Bell. Go for it early and try to control the race. Ross Chouest keeping Robb Holland honest early doors. Rusty Bittle is in fourth place.
Over the bridge they go for the first time at speed with Jason Daskalos in P1 but Johnny O'Connell, the winner of race one last night, wants to sweep and get back into victory lane. He is driving the older generation Audi R8 as they go in quick succession from turns 4-8. Crest the bridge and plunge downhill into the curving brake zone at turn nine. It is so tough because of a narrower profile and plunging downhill. 155 miles an hour top speed over the bridge as Rusty Bittle is getting the better of Gray Newell. An early pit call for Jason Bell. No planned pit stops in a 40-minute sprint. Trouble for the 2021 GT4 champion from Tampa, Florida.
It appears there is a tire problem on the left rear. Perhaps a puncture and changing the one Pirelli P Zero tire with the five individual lug nuts on the wheel. Flying Lizard has the most experience of any of these teams at doing live pit stops but Bell will need a safety car intervention to get back in the fight. The cars bob and weave and there is more elevation here at Nashville than one might think. There are some uphill and downhill sections as Jason Daskalos extends his lead over Johnny O'Connell to 1.6 seconds. Rusty Bittle fending off the challenge from Gray Newell and behind Newell, Nick Shanny in the Toyota Supra.
With the mechanical diversity of cars and brands, there are also the wonderful engine notes of course. The cars are at the tip top of the circuit, the flag on an eighth note if you were looking at a musical score, a piece of sheet music, for all you fellow musicians out there. Back down the stem of the note they come as they accelerate onto the bridge. There is tire pick up and debris on the road. Flying Lizard have executed a tire change after seeing it on the TPMS, tire pressure monitoring system. You can catch a puncture by watching the data, which is important for safety if a driver is unaware because the carcass of the tire will be overheated, overstressed, and come apart.
Jason Daskalos now leading the motor race by 2.3 seconds over Johnny O'Connell in second spot and has just uncorked the CrowdStrike Fastest Lap of the race thus far at 1:30.5 last time around. No one else running under 1:31. Johnny O'Connell ran a 1:31.2 and everyone else in the 1:32 range. Race one was fraught yesterday, but Jason Daskalos was the fastest man on the road. Todd Treffert is fifth and had to retire after contact with the barriers yesterday evening. Speaking of fraught, Rusty Bittle has some major drama and is in big, big trouble with a cut down tire and perhaps broken suspension as well, look, on his Porsche Cayman!
Contact at the left front. The whole left side of that Porsche has been completely pancaked and he can't steer it worth a lick. Well, well, well. Your steering and braking are totally compromised off the front axle and there is fluid on the road. So, the safety car is dispatched. Full Course Yellow. We are under Full Course Yellow. In replay, he ran wide and slammed the right front against the barrier. He must have done a billiard ball shot across the road and clobbered the left side as well. Gray Newell had an extremely close shave! But he was able to get through and now finds himself in third place in the GT4 category.
Robb Holland leading the GT4 class but his 2.8 second lead has now evaporated. Jason Daskalos is now running ahead of last night's winner Johnny O'Connell. Driving angry might just boost a driver's performance as the official safety car is on track, the Toyota Supra. Bell is trapped behind the safety car but ahead of the overall leader. In all fairness the SRO3 cars need to be waved by the GT4 machine and I think Jason Bell is acknowledging it and we will have a lengthy cleanup on the bridge, to haul Rusty Bittle's smashed car to safety. Jason Bell does take the wave by. OK.
Bell can fight for class position so long as we don't have a lengthy yellow with ten minutes elapsed and a half hour left on the board. Mirco Schultis is going to be steaming, baking inside that Corvette C7 GT3. Mirco Schultis is feeling fine. He is a tough cookie. We'd be remiss if we didn't pay tribute again to the late, great Reeves Callaway who passed away weeks ago. Callaway was licensed to race this GT3 car with license from GM and Chevrolet. Reeves Callaway always convinced Chevrolet that he was going to be able to sell Corvette's, from the Callaway family that builds golf clubs. A wonderful man.
Callaway, five years ago, won the title in ADAC GT Masters in Germany with driver Daniel Keilwitz. Overall sector one times are in the 27 second bracket. Johnny O'Connell has the edge over Daskalos and everyone else. The cars and drivers are going much faster this afternoon than they were last night. For Rusty Bittle, it is game over. But he learned a ton with the new car and on the side of his Porsche Cayman, it is marketing Flat Rock Motorsports and that new motorsports club closer to Knoxville, Tennessee, with an FIA Grade 2 track and as soon as the track is built, with asphalt going down as we speak. He will get back into racing as soon as that track in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is built. It will likely be a flowing, natural terrain road course.
It is between a few major population centers. Use the land, just like building a golf course. 24 minutes to go, so we are closing in on the halfway mark in the second race of the weekend here in Nashville. Just a handful of weekends and they will come fast. We have seen the cars at Road America and so we only have Sebring, Florida, and Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for SRO America and for the Intercontinental GT Challenge, and that series will have the Nurburgring 24 Hours as part of their calendar coming next year.
Looking forward to October and covering all the races and the 8 Hours of Indianapolis, and the finale for IGTC, the Gulf 12 Hours, which is oversubscribed. Amazing. Well, back to this race, and we are going back to green. Daskalos gets the jump and is extending his margin as Johnny O'Connell playing defense from Memo Gidley. Gidley wants to set things right after a race long battle with Daskalos and O'Connell, last night. Memo Gidley is the points leader by a reasonable margin. Daskalos second in the championship. Gidley has won five times, ex IndyCar and prototype driver now fully focused on GT3 cars.
Robb Holland has led the whole way this weekend, but Ross Chouest is motoring and coming in a hurry. Robb Holland whistled off into the distance and won by nine seconds plus last night. Holland has won the last three races here in Music City and has never been off the podium in the five previous running's of this event. Holland is a former professional cyclist before turning to motor racing and so he was around the same circles of the Lance Armstrong's of this world. Then he turned his attention to motor racing with driving British Touring Cars, Nurburgring Langstrecken Series, and now SRO GT America. We have just crossed the halfway mark in race two here at Nashville as Daskalos leads O'Connell by 1.8 seconds.
But, Johnny O'Connell has just uncorked his fastest lap of the race thus far. He is going for it, pressing hard. Track evolution on a street course, your braking points change from banners going up and the track surface changing with different rubber compounds of different tires down, such as the Firestone rubber we saw from the IndyCar race that happened earlier before this one. These cars are using the Pirelli P Zero tires and of course rubber on rubber contact brings grip to the track surface. I think Johnny O'Connell has seen everything there is to see and he is a chap who can't be fooled.
Memo Gidley has not run at the front this weekend even though he has won five races this year and of course TKO Motorsports had a dreadful time at Circuit of the Americas, but they have done well. Memo Gidley was a very accomplished driver before having a savage crash at the Rolex 24 at Daytona years and years ago. He went through multiple years of rehabilitation and into a go kart and into a full-fledged race car as Jason Bell is in recovery mode and has picked up a few spots and is applying the blowtorch to Gray Newell for the third spot, the final step on the podium.
Two established teams running Aston Martin's. The Heart of Racing vs. Flying Lizard Motorsports, as Bell passes Newell who could not put up a defense. Ross Chouest is 3.8 seconds up the road with Robb Holland nine seconds ahead, and in control over Chouest who has his hands full indeed. 15 minutes of racing to go. Jason Bell has a new lease on life after the incident we saw that brought out the Full Course Yellow with Rusty Bittle crunching the wall. Robb Holland's car and team is backed by Autobahn which is a private membership racing club, a racing country club if you will, so instead of having a golf course, tennis courts, and a swimming pool, they have a racetrack.
Bring you car and have it serviced and drive on a racetrack. Under 15 minutes remaining. Johnny O'Connell, 2.2 seconds in-arrears, chasing down Jason Daskalos and doing everything he can to make up ground. Front engined Mercedes vs. mid-engined Audi. They look and sound different and are yet lapping within 14 one thousandths of a second. Holy cow! O'Connell drives his personal best lap of the race last time by, keeping his powder dry, preserving his tires but there is a safety car on the speedway and another huge crash! Todd Treffert, the vintage racer turned GT3 driver has piled into the concrete barriers and destroyed the front end of his Mercedes-AMG GT3!
He has plowed into the tire barrier and the car is comprehensively used up in the same spot where the incident began that we saw for Rusty Bittle a wee while ago. Daskalos had two seconds over O'Connell and that has been erased. Holland's lead over Chouest is likewise erased. Hoping Todd Treffert will be OK, a winner in many vintage racing competitions over the years. Todd Treffert did win a race in GT America at Virginia International Raceway earlier in the year. Jason Daskalos in the overall lead. He feels good and is ready with a good car, for another restart.
Maintaining a good race car is what SKI Autosport wants to do. They are doing their winners' dinner tonight at Il Molino, an Italian restaurant here in Nashville. What's for dinner? Pizza. Chicken parmesan, pasta and red sauce with a meatball. Hmmm. All delicious. Todd Treffert walks to the safety vehicle under his own steam. Ten minutes to go and Daskalos will have to rocket away on the restart. 1:29.886, the CrowdStrike Fastest Lap set by Daskalos and O'Connell is still in the fight. It has been a cat and mouse game, getting a good draft. What does the savvy veteran in O'Connell have left in the locker?
Does Jason Daskalos have anything else? Johnny O'Connell was racing the Atlantic Series East in open wheel cars back in 1987 or so. Corvette Racing won the GTE Am class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and have wrapped up the championship in the FIA World Endurance Championship for the swansong of the factory Corvette team before they move to customer cars in the GT3 formula all across the board next year, so, different championships worldwide and we could see a number of GT3 Corvette's here in SRO competition and elsewhere. Overall top speeds.
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