It is time for the second and final race of the weekend in IMSA VP Racing Fuels Sports Car Challenge competition here at Virginia International Raceway. Welcome back, on this Sunday morning, to day two of racing at VIR. We have this second VP Challenge race scheduled to open things up. Then, it will be time, later this morning at 11:00 A.M., for the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR featuring the GT Daytona Pro and GT Daytona cars of the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. Yesterday, we saw Jagger Jones return to his winning ways, those just like his father P.J. and late grandfather, Parnelli. In the GSX class for GT4 production cars, we saw Luca Mars in the #59 KOHR Motorsports Ford Mustang GT4 dominate the class and win by a handsome margin of 45 seconds. It was peaches and cream for Luca Mars yesterday.
After this second event at VIR is done and dusted, only two races remain on the schedule for VP Racing Fuels Sports Car Challenge and both of those will end the season and be a part of the curtain closer for IMSA in 2024 at the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, outside of Atlanta. The great Paul Newman called VIR "heaven on earth" and he was right. What a gorgeous morning in Virginia, and here in southern Virginia, you cross into North Carolina and back into Virginia to get here.
It is a motorsports country club. We have talked about the circuit and the oak tree that used to be there while a sapling from the original 200-year-old tree, is growing. We have Brian Till and Jeremy Shaw calling the race this morning as the field is on their warmup lap behind the safety car. There are 1,050 points up for grabs between this event and the final two at Road Atlanta. Steve Aghakhani is the main championship contender. Jagger Jones and his team, FastMD Racing with Remstar, they were tied until yesterday. Marco Kasic of Canada started the races at Daytona for the FastMD team back in January.
OK. We are coming to the start of this 45 minute race. We're about to go green. Yes! The safety car is in pit lane. Green flag, and now, bring the field up slowly. Off we go! We're racing in VP Challenge race two. Jagger Jones scampering away from everyone. Jones is racing the lone Duqueien chassis in the field while everyone else is racing a Ligier JS P320 and all cars have the 5.6 liter Nissan V8. It is cooler this morning on track and the Michelin tires will heat up slower. So, be very careful. As cool as it is, it is like driving on ice. Luca Mars romps away from the rest of the GSX field for the GT4 cars.
Luca Mars leads over Mark Brummond and Scott Blind as we speak. Lap one is now in the bag. Once we head to Road Atlanta for the finale doubleheader, will we see Steven Aghakhani push harder? We'll have to wait and find out. When push comes to shove, maybe just show up, but also, mount a big charge to the end. He is going to score points no matter what now that this race is underway. Steven Aghakhani is an aspiring driver in this sport. At this moment, Jagger Jones, with his experience in many kinds of cars, he knows what to do, just like his dad and his grandfather.
Steven Aghakhani has been racing for four or five years but does not have the breadth of experience as I believe he has been in sports cars a lot. Jonathan Hirshberg in the #86 Ligier, he is making his first foray into prototypes, a veteran of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo one-make championship. The Lamborghini has more power but the LMP3 prototype has more downforce. Brian Thienes is helping him and Patrick Liddy is Hirshberg's driver coach. Liddy is a regular driver in Lamborghini Super Trofeo and has tested cars at tracks like the Thermal Club and Spring Mountain in southern California.
In the GSX class, Patrick Wilmot is charging forward but fell down the order to sixth and is back on the charge. He has been shuffled down the order. Mark Brummond in second behind Luca Mars. Brummond had the drive of his career yesterday. He is running well now, too. I wonder what happened to poor old Patrick Wilmot. He had a great race in race one yesterday. With Jesse Lazare unable to start the McLaren and answer the bell this weekend, Wilmot has moved up to second in the points behind Luca Mars. Mark Brummond is being harried by Brady Behrman in the #82 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4, the van der Steur Racing machine.
This morning the track here at VIR is so different and much cooler compared to starting race one yesterday at noon. Maybe the undertray is dropped down on the car, or maybe it is only a shadow. Hopefully our eyes are deceiving us. Brady Behrman is at his home track. He is from Virginia Beach, Virginia. So, VIR is his home track. Behrman and Scott Blind are both racing in Michelin Pilot Challenge, too. The BMW is well suited to this track. With the cooler track, no tire degradation to worry about on the Michelin tires between the climbin esses and The Rollercoaster.
Behrman slides through Oak Tree as the cars fly onto Madison Avenue, the backstretch. Has Patrick Wilmot loosened a dive plane on the front of the BMW? I think so. Frank DePew, another local driver from Richmond, Virginia, he is being pursued by Patrick Wilmot currently. This is a great battle between two front engine GT4 cars, the Aston Martin and the BMW M4 GT4. I think someone else is missing a piece of trim and it is stuck to Patrick Wilmot's car.
Scott Blind, the Missouri driver, he did not have a good race yesterday. However, he and Brady Behrman will run in Bronze category competition in Michelin Pilot Challenge at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Road Atlanta. We are almost 1/3rd of the way through this race as Jagger Jones leads the motor race. When he arrived for his first race at St. Petersburg, he missed the openers at Daytona, but he has won every race on track since then, and he only lost race one at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park because of a technical infringement.
VP Challenge is great because young drivers can learn multi-class racing and gives extra laps and extra time to race on the circuit running the same car or same brand of car as in Michelin Pilot Challenge. Francis Selldorff who won the GSX title last year has now stepped up to Michelin Pilot Challenge and has been doing a wonderful job teamed up with Robby Foley. The GSX cars are identical to the GT4 cars in Michelin Pilot Challenge, the same cars. Jagger Jones has now caught the GSX pack and there is a big speed differential between the two classes as he works past Sean Quinlan in the #19 Stephen Cameron Racing Ford Mustang GT4. That team used to race a BMW M4 GT4 but has switched to The Blue Oval. These lap times are plummeting two or three seconds and getting a bit slower through the traffic.
Steven Aghakhani has caught traffic in the worst possible place on the course. Traffic giveth. Traffic taketh away. Luca Mars is running 23 seconds to the good over his GSX rivals including second place Mark Brummond. Aghakhani is trapped behind Brumond as we speak through Oak Tree and down Madison Avenue again. Brummond places the car in the middle of the road and then let Aghakhani go. We see it in the WeatherTech Championship where the production cars put themselves in the middle to tell the prototype drivers, "not now, sunbeam." Car placement announces what a driver's intentions are.
Luca Mars has really been turning up the wick, from Sewickley, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh, and he is a real talent, at age 18. He had a wonderful run to finish on the podium in the Michelin Pilot Challenge race yesterday. Trouble for Mark Brummond. He has a flat right rear Michelin tire. Oh dear. Was there contact with another car? It is likely. Through The Rollercoaster, Brummond needs to be to driver's right to enter the pit lane. He does so, and is now in a world of pain being in a sprint race with no planned pit stops.
He needs to stay on the lead lap and hope and pray for a Full Course Yellow. 24 minutes left on the board, so just at the halfway mark in a couple minutes. Brummond might stay on the lead lap. So, he is back in the race now. We don't see trouble with Michelin tires too often. Maybe there is debris out there. So, Brummond hopes to move up the order. Patrick Wilmot moves up to second place. Wilmot in the wars with the bodywork dangling off the front of his car. Jagger Jones' lead over Steven Aghakhani has ballooned to 11 seconds or more and Mark Brummond's woes are compounded with a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Sean Quinlan doing a great job with the new Ford Mustang. This car is far bigger in size than the BMW M4 GT4. V8 power in the Mustang. Six-cylinder power in the BMW. Patrick Wilmot, it was decided he should start in the back of the field. Brummond lost his qualifying times due to an infraction on ride height in post-qualifying scrutineering. he had to start last in the field, Patrick Wilmot did. He has worked hsi way up t second spot. Thank you, Jimmy Scott, from Split Decision Motorsports, for informing us of what is going on.
Mark Brummond is just not having the best race now that we have gone past halfway and are in the second half of this motor race. Miguel Villagomez is third in LMP3. He is at the wheel of the #23 Escuderia Abro Ligier. Villagomez has a loose cheese wedge on the rear tail. Don't lose that thing. Oh dear. That cheese wedge is hanging on by a thread. Villagomez did not go to Canada to race. Good to see him back in the series. That darn cheese wedge is very loose and he now has the mechanical black flag, the meatball, the black flag with the orange disk.
Oh boy. Meatballs? Cheese? No more food references this early in the morning. Grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast as this race continues and get revved up for the main event, the WeatherTech Championship GT race, later on. We have 17 minutes to go. Villagomez now into the pit lane to make repairs. Rip off the cheese wedge and cut the wire to the taillight. Job done. Villagomez will lose a slice of time. I think Villagomez has dropped down to the tail end of the field. We also saw Mark Brummond in the lane as well.
Some days, you are the windshield and other days, you are the bug. Another speeding penalty for Brummond. He is the bug today. Jones, Aghakhani, Thienes the top three in LMP3. In GSX, it is Luca Mars, Patrick Wilmot, and Frank DePew, the top three. Luca Mars is on a Sunday morning drive, 41 seconds to the good over Patrick Wilmot. We had one full course yellow in race one yesterday and today has been clean and green so far with just 13 minutes left on the board. Ford engineers Larry Rehagen and Dean Martin are the team bosses at KOHR Motorsports.
Brady Behrman is now running behind Sean Quinlan and is making up ground. BMW vs. Aston Martin in GSX. Angus Rogers and Scott Blind are also back there. Blind in the Ruckus Racing Aston Martin and Angus Rogers in the #5 KMW Motorsport with TMR Engineering Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport. Jagger Jones' lead gap has ballooned to 26 seconds plus, over Steven Aghakhani and the same is true for Luca Mars almost 45 seconds to the good over Patrick Wilmot. Steven Aghakhani may have had some trouble that we have not seen.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Brian Thienes is carving his way through GSX traffic. Oh no! Frank DePew has walloped the tires in the right hand turn before Oak Tree corner. He just ran wide and stuffed it into the tires, cresting a slight hill, the car gets light and clonks the tire barriers. There are multiple bands of tires tied together and banded with conveyor belt material to absorb energy. Kudos to making improvements to the speedway by Kerrigan Smith, Connie Neiholm, and the staff of VIR. We may be under Full Course Yellow, but I don't know. Maybe the marshals are waiting to see if Frank DePew can move to safety, to a safe haven off track.
Ah. Now we are under Full Course Yellow and the AMR safety team are on their way to rescue Frank DePew. Good to see these bundled tire walls and it is a brilliant situation when you have room to do it, away from the guardrail to dissipate energy before getting to the Armco or the concrete guardrail. This track was reopened and it has been improved. It was open from 1955-1974 when it closed and it was closed for a quarter of a century and since reopening it has gotten better and better. There is a hotel, shooting ranges, go kart tracks, the track itself, it is a world class place. There are some beautiful condos where you can own them or rent them like an Air B&B or a Vrbo vacation property or whatever.
I would love to live at a racetrack! That would be fun. It is a "field of dreams" like a baseball diamond. "If you build it, they will come." This place used to be farmland and a corn field in the '80s and '90s. Thank heavens the track was totally restored. Many famous names raced here in the '60s and early '70s. Now, there is also the separate Patriot Course which people can race and test with their road cars. Frank DePew rescued to the south pit lane. nI think he is out of the race. We are going to have a true shootout to the end of the race. Talking of the shooting range, who will be the fastest gun in the west here? OK, cowboys. Get ready for a shootout at the OK Corral!
Green flag. Aghakhani has Brian Thienes right on his six and now, Ryan Phinny gets body slammed by Brian Thienes after the two of them banged wheels yesterday and Phinny tucked Thienes up like a kipper. Phinny races better than he qualifies. He has his motorsports plans sorted out for the next handful of seasons. That's good to see. Final lap. Jagger Jones can cruise to another victory. He turned a 1:44.7 last time by, bringing it home. Jordan Menzin is holding on ahead of Miguel Villagomez. Menzin is all new to motor racing. He is doing a great job. He too, has big plans and expectations.
He is so confident but people tell him, 'slow down, mate. You have to learn your craft and how to race, first." OK. Jagger Jones though has taken the field to school and wins again in LMP3 in VP Challenge race two at VIR! Luca Mars and KOHR Motorsports break out the broom and sweep! He extends his championship lead. Patrick Wilmot, like yesterday, finishes second. So, that wraps up the doubleheader here at VIR and we are looking forward to the last two races of the year at Road Atlanta.
Overall/LMP3: #87 Jagger Jones FastMD Racing with Remstar Ligier JS P320 Nissan
GSX: #59 Luca Mars KOHR Motorsports Ford Mustang GT4
WeatherTech Championship team bosses, take note, you have possible candidates for future drives at the top level of IMSA. OK, everybody. We will see you for the finals of VP Challenge at Road Atlanta at Petit Le Mans weekend in October. That will be the place we crown champions and close out the season. We'll see you in October for more VP Racing action. Bye bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment