Jimmy Vasser was all smiles behind the podium celebrations for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, the Vasser Sullivan Lexus team having scored its first double victory by capturing both GTD and GTD PRO with its pair of Lexus RC F GT3s. For the No. 12 GTD squad of Aaron Telitz, Frankie Montecalvo and Parker Thompson, it was extra sweet as they headed the GT field overall.
“What a day for this team and the organization,” beamed Telitz. “I’ve been with Vasser Sullivan and Lexus racing for four years now and I gotta say this is coolest, best day we’ve had, and the best day I think I’ve had as a driver overall. It feels pretty good.”
The victory was Telitz’s fifth in IMSA WeatherTech Championship competition, Montecalvo’s second and Thompson’s first.
The No. 12 had been out front most of the day. The team did have its challenges, notably from the Iron Dames as Michelle Gatting battled with Montecalvo for the lead in the middle of the race. A short time later, though, the Lamborghini Huracán was given a mechanical black flag for a tire specification violation, which happened to a number of teams, especially among the GT cars. The violation could have been tire pressure outside the specifications, or a malfunctioning TPMS unit.
Lone GTD-class car out front, the No. 12 — with four GTD PRO teams right behind them, led by the No. 14 of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat — came into the race as championship leaders. They padded that lead with their second win of the season and kept their podium streak alive.
Vasser Sullivan’s sister car in GTD PRO had to survive a mid-race battle with the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo22 of Andrea Caldarelli and Jordan Pepper. That challenge ended when Caldarelli was passing Rob Ferriol in the No. 42 NTE Sport Lamborghini, and both got hit by Alex Kirby in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier LMP3, ending the race for both Lamborghini teams. After that, the win for Hawksworth and Barnicoat should have been easy, except for a drive-through penalty for violating the pit-lane speed limit.
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“When I got in the car for the final stint, that was not how I was expecting things to play out,” explained Hawksworth. “The boys had done amazing job all the way through the race; we made really good calls at the right time. And you know, Ben had done a fantastic job and it kind of looked like at that point, as long as we didn’t get a caution or something, that it was going to be kind of plain sailing to the end of the race. Obviously, we don’t know exactly what what happened yet, why when I left the box the PLC wasn’t controlling the speed…”
That set up a final battle where Hawksworth first had to get by the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R and then fend off polesitter Daniel Serra in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3. Hawksworth was stuck behind Antonio Garcia in the Corvette for a long time. He finally saw his opportunity, and dove inside at Turn 7 to take the apex away from Garcia. That slowed Garcia enough that Serra was able to sneak through as well.
“I don’t know if a prototype kind of held him up or something but I got slightly better run off Turn 7 than I had on the previous laps. I was just slightly closer. I think I caught him by surprise a little bit and then got back to the lead,” Hawksworth said.
Hawksworth then had a fight on his hands as Serra was doing everything he could to catch and pass the Lexus. Serra and Davide Rigon finished second for Risi, with Garcia and Jordan Taylor third.
To overcome the speed violation and come back to take a double victory for the team was the cherry on top of a season that has been about as good as can be imagined for the team.
“The amount of work that we’ve been putting in as an organization has been phenomenal and I see myself as incredibly lucky to be here at Vasser Sullivan Lexus racing,” said Barnicoat. “Days like today show that. We’ve had a great run of form this year and the No. 12 guys have been doing just as good of a job. GTD in some ways can be harder to get good results – there’s more cars and they’ve certainly deserved a win for a long time, so it’s great to see them finally get that. I’m super pumped for them and for Parker as well – his first win as Lexus driver, which is great for everyone involved.”
The drive of the race came from the Paul Miller Racing crew. A disconnection between steering wheel and dash left them sitting in the pits, eventually going two laps down. Some lucky breaks with pass-arounds and wave-by enabled them to get their laps back in one go, and Corey Lewis, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow put their heads down to move through the field to get to second and bolstered the championship lead.
“We got a pretty fortunate yellow there and it had to fall the right way, and it did,” explained Sellers “And then you have to make the right call on the stand, when to stay out, when to pit and they did it. We were super lucky with how it fell, where we were on track; we got our two laps back in that one yellow. And then from there, they just told me to go and said, ‘Go as hard as you can and see how far we can go. ’And the positions just kept coming. The car was super strong. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have a run at the whole race with the electrical problem early, but I think you’ve got to look at days like today and say, when you come back like that, it’s a really great day.”
Ryan Hardwick, Jan Heylen and Zacharie Robichon finished third in the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R.