It is time now for the GT2, GT3, and GT4 cars of Pirelli GT America to commence their first race of the weekend here at Virginia International Raceway. The first eight races have seen fierce battles and those will continue as we are situated in the heart of Virginia farm country. A gorgeous day ensues here on the Virginia, North Carolina border and soon we will be ready to race. No threat of rain in the forecast for this 40-minute sprint. Single driver format, and a throwback to the original days of World Challenge. Memo Gidley’s points lead over Jason Daskalos has evaporated in SRO3 while the top two in the GT4 class are all tied up. We have Ryan Myrehn and Calvin Fish calling the action from the broadcast booth and Amanda Busick, as always, in the pit lane.
Memo Gidley, nothing worked for him at COTA last time out. But that is all in the past now. They have reset their minds. Memo Gidley starts alongside Adam Adelson. Jason Daskalos is ready for battle and looks to gain places as this race gets underway. George Kurtz, the defending SRO3 champion in GT America missed the setup and starts down the order this morning. They turned it around in GT World Challenge America qualifying for the race we’ll see later today. For the first time, series veteran C.J. Moses has his GT2 class Audi R8 here, a Virginia native. C.J. Moses is a sports car enthusiast. Two long straightaways, the 3,000-foot frontstretch and the 4,000-foot backstretch known as Madison Avenue.
Johnny O’Connell is racing this weekend in an Audi instead of a Ferrari. SKI Autosports now running an Audi R8 LMS Ultra with the #3 on the side instead of the #56 Ferrari 458 Italia we have been so used to seeing for many a year now. Turner Motorsports are returning to the SRO paddock this weekend and have Vincent Barletta making his SRO debut. Barletta is a mainstay for Turner Motorsports in GT4 in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge. In the GT4 class, Gray Newell has pole position in the #25 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4.
Tim Savage is in his second weekend of SRO America racing this weekend aboard the #009 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 for The Racer’s Group led by team boss Kevin Buckler. They too have w GT3 Aston Martin entered for GT World Challenge America competition later this afternoon. We have a great field and a great mix of sports cars lined up here in a 25 strong field for GT America. No pit stops to worry about. This is a true sprint race we are about to see. Anthony Bartone is set to go too. He is ready. Johnny O’Connell is now ready with the Audi R8 and we’ll see how he will do. They finally got a fuel cell for that car.
When he raced in the Ferrari 458 Italia, it is an older car and the same is true with this Audi R8. It is an older version. Speed is not the trouble. It is hot in the car and the driver cooling is what they’ve been working on. This track is superb and looks fabulous. 17 corners across 3.27 miles and 130 feet of elevation change over a single lap. You need straightaway speed on Madison Avenue and the front straightaway. Braking is important and the cars have to be compliant over the bumps. Watch out so you don’t make a mistake. The runoff is all grass.
Give your competitors extra room so argy bargy is avoided. This track opened in 1957 and the first event was held in August 1957 won by none other than Carroll Shelby, the one and the only, aboard a Maserati 450S. That is a top, priceless sports car these days. The GT3 and GT2 cars will start first with a separate start for the GT4 contenders. Adelson and Gidley across the front row with Bartone and O’Connell on the second row. Todd Treffert and George Kurtz on row three as they crawl across the start/finish line, and now, we’re green! Away we go! Adelson to the lead of the motor race. Jason Daskalos getting after it early doors and you can tell he wants a way by both Anthony Bartone and Memo Gidley and will do whatever he can to get it.
Gray Newell is the man who gets the jump on the rest of the GT4 field as he punches it at the start. Robb Holland in second place in the Porsche Cayman has Ross Chouest crawling all over the back of him right away. Jason Bell, too, is working on Ross Chouest and these two blokes are scrapping already and they got the jump on the #5 Black Dog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R in the hands of Tony Gaples. Into the Oak Tree corner for the first time and Daskalos spins! Yikes! There used to be a massive oak tree standing sentinel over this corner and now, there is an acorn sapling that may very well be growing as the son of oak tree, we hope.
Now, we as see this spun car there is a possibility that Kurtz and/or O’Connell could have made contact and there is heavy damage to the Audi. I think that is O’Connell’s car, the blue Audi. Hard to tell in the tail’s away shot as they set up for the dyno run down Madison Avenue. By criminy! That is O’Connell and poor SKI Autosport cannot buy a break no matter how hard they try as the redhead from Georgia is trundling ‘round in a rather secondhand motorcar, currently. O’Connell in limp home mode down Madison Avenue. I wonder too if Jason Daskalos had a cut down Pirelli tire as the GT4 field storms past. Well, well, well. Trouble in paradise early doors here at VIR.
Gray Newell at the top of the shop. Holland and Chouest next in the serial. This is the GT4 class. Hard to say if Gray Newell got shot out of a cannon or if poor old Ross Chouest was asleep at the switch. The tires are coming into their sweet spot in pressure and temperature. Robb Holland going by a squirming Gray Newell under braking into the turn and the Porsche man looks like he has just about made a clean pass. Bish, bash, bosh, and Holland goes to the lead in GT4. Now, Newell is losing patience with Holland is going side by side through NASCAR Bend!
Holland and Newell in the GT4 lead fight. Newell tucks it in to the inside. Great respect by the pair of these drivers and Greay Newell back to the top of the shop. Ross Chouest and Jason Bell realize they haven’t been invited to this little party and are going to break down the door to show up uninvited anyway. Elias Sabo is also reeling in this lot and the safety car has been dispatched. Full Course Yellow. We are under Full Course Yellow now. Jason Daskalos, stranded off to the inside, unable to move. Johnny O’Connell managed to limp back to the pit lane for a new right rear Pirelli tire. But I still wonder how bad the damage to that car truly is.
Was it just a cut tire? Is there more? Johnny O’Connell is released back on track. Hopefully the sidewall was all that was affected. O’Connell stepped away from high level racing a few years ago but has done vintage racing and now is back in a professional setting. Johnny O’Connell is not just a driver. He is a racer, and a racer with a new lease on life. He is proving himself once again and showing he can be a great Bronze rated driver in any professional championship. Team manager Phil Creighton, and the Hussey family who own SKI Autosport are giving him the opportunity.
He is sharing the track with his son Canaan O’Connell who races in the one make Toyota GR Cup series. Daskalos out of the car and it is game over. Johnny O’Connell reported that Daskalos ran into him. The right rear tire went flat and the bodywork had to be pulled away. In replay, let’s see what happened. The hit already happened through The Snake, and you saw Johnny O’Connell bail out of it. Memo Gidley could get on the podium. C.J. Moses is giving the #58 Audi R8 LMS GT2 a good run. This car is the sole representative this weekend in GT America of the GMG Racing team under team boss and driver, multiple champion and veteran of SRO America, James Sofronas.
They are trying to get the GT2 class to grow. C.J. Moses is the Chief Security Officer for Amazon Web Services, AWS. He has run many laps here at VIR in SCCA competition and lives near Washington D.C., near Gainesville, Virginia. He is able to open it up in the GT2 Audi down Madison Avenue. The car is totally unrestricted and so it has speed and can beat the GT3 and GT4 cars. There were a couple of GT2 class races before this one, at the Dijon Prenois circuit, in France, and we might be able to bring those to you at some point, should the time ever permit. SRO boss Stephane Ratel drove a GT2 car at Dijon earlier today. Low downforce, high horsepower, and fun to drive. Much less downforce than the GT3 cars have.
There are a couple manufacturers that have GT2 spec models available. KTM, Mercedes, Lamborghini, Audi, and Porsche, I think. It is beginning to take off in Europe and we might see more of the cars here stateside before the end of the 2023 season. 29 and a half minutes of flat-out racing starts, now! Adelson, Gidley, Bartone, Treffert. One Porsche 911 GT3R vs. three Mercedes-AMG GT3’s. Vincent Barletta is fifth as Elias Sabo has gone off the road after a nudge as Gidley is working over Adelson and Adelson is losing grip, sideways through The Snake. Bartone and Treffert are pushing hard. On Friday, Treffert had trouble but is coming to the fore.
Adelson slides wide and now Memo Gidley is unofficially in the lead as the safety car is deployed! Yikes! Maybe the flag stations put the flag out as we have a massive debris field down the front straightaway. The TKO Motorsports team tells Memo Gidley the safety car is out and to stay to driver’s right out of Hog Pen, the final turn. This has been a disjointed motor race thus far and poor old Adam Adelson is off course and running very slowly. He is rolling through Hog Pen and having some kind of handling woes on that automobile no doubt.
Adelson has had a stonking season in Fanatec GT World Challenge America thus far but cannot transfer that success to the GT America side of the equation. In replay, Sabo cops a massive whack into the pit wall and spears right across the road and into the grass, mowing the lawn here at VIR. Oy yoy yoy! Sabo was side by side with Paul Kiebler in the #77 TR3 Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4. The consequences are massive for Sabo. A rough week for the Flying Lizard team. Half a dozen cars on site and five of them were damaged in testing. Adam Adelson stopped at pit in and I don’t think he was even under power.
Adelson’s car is the same GT3 spec Porsche 911 GT3R (991.II) the team at Wright Motorsports uses in Fanatec GT World Challenge America. So if there are troubles on this race car that could jeopardize their ability to make the start of the GTWC race later this afternoon. Wright Motorsports did not need this. They have to hustle to figure out the trouble. It looked to me like there were handling woes but there’s more to this picture than meets the eye. This is a mechanical issue they’ll have to suss out over this race is over. When he ran wide, I wondered if something broke.
It is a long haul between Madison Avenue and the pit lane. So how on earth did he run out of steam before getting to the lane and only making the pit entry? Goodness knows. Wright Motorsports will have to hustle. Less than two hours from now we will be beginning the first race for GTWC America. Todd Treffert was second but gave the spot up to Anthony Bartone. Bartone is followed by Memo Gidley and by Vincent Barletta. Barletta has GT4 experience but not as much at the wheel of a GT3 car except in a previous generation BMW, I believe, the old V8 twin turbo M6 model. Plenty of laps in GT4. Good to see Vincent Barletta and Turner Motorsports here in SRO America.
George Kurtz is now running in fifth place and this situation, if we get back to green promptly, Kurtz is in the pound seats to go on the attack and get after it. This will be manna from heaven for Kurtz. They had a subpar qualifying effort but learned a lot from the practices for Fanatec GT World Challenge America later as Elias Sabo’s Aston Martin is used up. Gidley, Bartone, Treffert, the top three in SRO3. Gray Newell leads GT4 over Robb Holland, Ross Chouest, and Jason Bell. Memo Gidley is feeling out the balance of the car, grinding off the clag, the rubber buildup on the front Pirelli tires.
Go through the corner and give the car massive steering input. Gray Newell scored his first pole of 2023 after having one 2022 pole at the finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Memo Gidley, the overall leader, steps on it, and we are just past halfway. 20 minutes to go in this 40-minute contest. Gidley, the championship leader, is also the race leader. Bartone covers off from Treffert. Side by side stuff between Newell and Holland. Holland wants it and Newell gets checked up. Holland throws the block through NASCAR Bend, and they are side by side. C.J. Moses in the ultra-fast GT2 spec Audi R8 is the cork in the bottle.
Contact! Newell biffs Moses and Moses goes sideways! Moses stops, Newell is clipped, spins out, and the track is blocked! What next in this motor race? What next? Poor old Newell is in limp home mode with a cut down tire that will do enormous damage. Poor old Moses is a shot duck, dead stick on the side of the road there. This is a third Full Course Yellow. Newell as well, stopped dead stick as Robb Holland leads Ross Chouest and these two blokes would love it to stay green. Full Course Yellow, third of the race. Safety Car deployed. Single yellow now. Safety car deployed as we said.
Kurtz did not make up places on the restart and the sand is trickling through the hourglass if he wants a chance at a victory as he is stymied behind Gidley, Bartone, Treffert, and Barletta. Holland, Chouest, and Bell will be duking it out for the GT4 honors. Porsche, vs. two Aston Martin’s. Again, Elias Sabo is retired, and it looks like Gray Newell will be as well. Sabo got tagged into the wall and they could be back for race two tomorrow. We’ll see. He was close to Phil Kiebler. Spares will be a concern for Aston Martin Customer Racing.
Right now, keep prepping the car and tires. Do not fall asleep at the wheel. Keep the marbles off the tires and keep the heat in the tires. Be careful of the debris offline. George Kurtz has not had great track position and has been on the comeback trail since the disappointing weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, way back in February and has had only one race off the podium since then. Jason Daskalos is back in the motor race and if he can turn it on, he can score points and put them in the bank. Hopefully we can stay green as the first 2/3rds of this race have been run under the safety car.
Anthony Bartone is still working with Andy Pilgrim. Gidley has experience with team manager Sam White communicating to him over the radio. Bartone needs to work the tires over and get to the brake pedal if he has one. He is now running in Pro-Am in Fanatec GT World Challenge America running alongside Adam Christodoulou, the Mercedes-AMG factory driver. Christodoulou has joined Bartone Brothers Racing with RealTime Racing. Andy Pilgrim remains a driver coach and mentor. He has full support from his dad, drag racing legend Tony Bartone.
Johnny O’Connell back into the pit lane. Adam Adelson, out of the race, he could still score fastest lap. Adelson could be in a position for a second consecutive pole. Tony Bartone keeping tabs on his son in the pit lane. Jason Daskalos is back into the pit lane and CRP Racing will look at the car, led by veteran Nick Short, based in Charlotte, North Carolina for several years but now running the team, at the behest of driver Todd Treffert, out of Sarasota, Florida. Nick Short had been looking after Todd Treffert’s vintage racing cars and procured the Sarasota, Florida, shop.
Treffert is showing pace. In vintage racing, there is great equipment and great drivers, but hard racing is frowned upon. Treffert says he is learning how to race wheel to wheel with people. Treffert raced alongside James Sofronas at Circuit of the Americas last time out and did well. Under eight minutes to go in this race which has been a stop/start kind of deal. Green flag s out and we’re racing again. Gidley, Bartone, Treffert, the top three, all in Mercedes’ and Vincent Barletta and George Kurtz are both coming in a hurry as Tony Gaples goes off the road and back on.
Poor old Tony Gaples is going to lose ground after this. This is the last year of homologation for the Chevrolet Camaro and the Camaro nameplate is going away according to Chevrolet and GM. George Kurtz has not had the season he’s wanted in GT America in 2023. Barletta in his first professional GT3 race. We have seen Vincent Barletta racing with Robby Foley in GT4 competition and the two of them have won races together in another series and really proven themselves. Kurtz is beginning tomclose through Rollercoaster and Hog Pen.
The BMW with its straight six power, has the edge in a straight line over the Mercedes through Hog Pen and down the front straightaway. The Mercedes has strength under braking and is more compliant over the bumps. Bartone is closing on Gidley through NASCAR Bend. In GT4, meantime, Robb Holland leads Ross Chouest and Jason Bell. Bell knows he needs to win races starting now. He has to go for it if he wants the title. Robb Holland has bucketloads of experience. He is a seasoned competitor and now, Anthony Bartone is off the road coming into Oak Tree! Deary me!
I think he dropped a wheel on the right, and just lost the car and clobbers the tire barrier! Ouch! Team manager Nathan Bonneau cannot believe what he’s seeing. Double yellow flags. Safety car deployed. Full Course Yellow. This race is going to end under caution with the tire bundle needing examination. George Kurtz could pick up two places even if we don’t go back to green. Game over for Anthony Bartone. Such a shame. Bartone did a partial GT4 schedule in 2022 and is now up to the GT3 ranks. That is part of the learning curve, drinking from a firehose. He has done it with aplomb.
This race will end behind the safety car. No chance for a restart. Just maybe Kurtz’s bacon will be saved here. Everyone is chasing Memo Gidley, and should he win, he will expand his points lead. Ross Chouest will take a narrow point lead on Jason Bell, and they will be duking it out tomorrow in race two. Robb Holland may be on the way to a second GT4 win of the year. Memo Gidley and TKO Motorsports have had a solid day and they are going to win this motor race today. Gidley also scores fastest lap at 1:48.389 and he will be on pole for race two tomorrow because of it.
Can the RealTime team repair Anthony Bartone’s Mercedes? We’ll see. Robb Holland has been a veteran of the British Touring Car Championship and the NLS at the Nurburgring, the Nurburgring Langstrecken Series. Memo Gidley wins his fifth race of the year in race one at VIR! Robb Holland takes his second GT4 victory with Chouest and Bell on the podium ahead of Paul Kiebler and Tim Savage. Treffert and Kurtz round out the SRO3 podium.
Overall/SRO3: #101 Memo Gidley TKO Motorsport with Flying Lizard Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo
GT4: #099 Robb Holland Rotek Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport
Race two of GT America at VIR takes place tomorrow. We’ll see you then for more action. Stay tuned today, too. A couple more races still to run this Saturday.
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