Round eight of the 2024 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge was a tale of two races for the Grand Sport (GS) class.
The opening act of Saturday’s Virginia Is For Racing Lovers Grand Prix was all about RS1’s No. 28 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport, as Motul Pole winner Stevan McAleer showed a clean pair of heels – make that a clean rear diffuser – to the field. But when a full-course yellow halfway through the two-hour race interrupted matters amid a round of pit stops and driver exchanges, the No. 38 BGB Motorsports Porsche emerged in the lead, with Spencer Pumpelly having taken over from Thomas Collingwood. Although Trent Hindman matched teammate McAleer’s earlier form in the No. 28, Pumpelly never left a glimmer of an opening over the closing hour and came home 0.373s clear of Hindman to win the race.
In addition to the efforts of the BGB driving tandem, the win owed as much to pit stop strategy that saw the Porsche stretch its fuel mileage and Michelin tires until lap 27, even as the balance of the GS field (including McAleer) stopped several laps earlier. That proved crucial when the full-course caution on lap 29 brought the early stoppers back to top off on fuel and removed any doubt as to whether Pumpelly had enough fuel to go the remaining distance.
“Thanks to good position and good strategy and a little bit of luck, we cycled to the front of the field,” said Pumpelly. “These BGB guys have worked so hard these past couple of weeks to get this car back into competitive form. For the last hour, I had one of the best in the business (Hindman) in one of the best cars pounding on me, and I didn’t want to let our guys down by making a mistake. We were a little close on fuel but after that (second) full-course yellow (with 45 minutes left), we were fine.”
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Not only did that second caution ease Pumpelly’s fuel concerns, it gave Hindman extra incentive to focus on collecting points rather than making any do-or-die efforts for the win. That’s because that second caution knocked both Team TGM’s class-leading No. 46 Aston Martin Vantage GT4 and van der Steur Racing’s No. 19 Aston Martin (third in the GS standings at the time) down the order, opening the door for a big points day for Hindman, McAleer and the No. 28 RS1 Porsche.
“I have a ton of respect for Spencer and the BGB team,” Hindman said. “They’ve been quick all year and haven’t had too much luck, so I’m happy for them. Obviously, we wanted the win, but knowing where our two closest championship rivals were, there wasn’t any point in taking further risk. Just stay behind and do what we needed to do. But to be honest, they were super quick and it was going to be hard to get by.”
The No. 59 KohR Motorsport Ford Mustang GT4 of Luca Mars (GSX class winner in the VP Racing SportsCar Challenge earlier in the day) and Bob Michaelian came home third, with the No. 91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche of Riley Dickinson and Michael McCarthy in fourth, the top four finishers blanketed by 1.487s.
The results tightened the GS standings considerably, with Matt Plumb and the No. 46 Team TGM Aston Martin leading Hindman, McAleer and the No. 28 Porsche by just 10 points heading into the final two rounds of the season at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Wittmer’s wily pass puts Honda in TCR Victory Lane for first time in ‘24
For Karl Wittmer, it was a case of the student becoming the teacher. Wittmer completed a brilliant outside-inside pass of Tyler Gonzalez for the lead with 3.5m to go and drove away to claim the Touring Car (TCR) class win in the No. 93 Montreal Motorsport Group Honda Civic FL5 TCR that he shares with Dai Yoshihara.
It marked the first win of the season for Honda, which became the 17th of the 18 IMSA manufacturers to earn a victory in 2024. It’s also the first win for the Civic FL5 model.
Gonzalez, in the No. 99 Victor Gonzalez Racing Team Hyundai Elantra N TCR, was hounded by Wittmer in the No. 93 Honda over the final 30 minutes of the race. Wittmer made numerous overtake attempts on the VIR backstretch and heading into Turn 1 but was rebuffed by Gonzalez each and every time.
Until, that is, Wittmer moved to the outside as they approached Turn 1 on lap 55. When Gonzalez faded his Hyundai outside to block, Wittmer darted back inside as they entered the turn and exited with the lead. He went on to win by 1.299s.
WE HAVE A BATTLE!@VIRNow pic.twitter.com/zKqSQB1LQR
— IMSA (@IMSA) August 24, 2024
Afterward, Wittmer credited Matt Campbell – the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) driver for Porsche Penske Motorsport in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – for using the same maneuver to pass Wittmer in the Bathurst 12 Hour race.
“He did that and he taught me a lesson that day,” Wittmer said with a smile. “I was pumped to try it and it worked.
“It was a really good battle with the Hyundai,” he added. “He wasn’t making it easy but he was very clean. I had to sort of pick and choose my strengths versus his weaknesses, and then I just committed to it.”
While disappointed not to win, Gonzalez was pleased with the second-place result for him and co-driver Morgan Burkhard – by far the best for the No. 99 this season.
“I got the lead, had a little breakaway, but every lap I looked in my mirrors I saw that Honda coming,” Gonzalez said. “I knew it was going to get there eventually, and I could tell he was just kind of waiting. They just outpaced us, for sure. I tried to hold him off as long as I could, but at the end of it they just had more than us.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good, hard race like that in TCR. It’s very refreshing and, yeah, it was a lot of fun.”
TCR points leaders Chris Miller and Mikey Taylor finished seventh in the No. 17 Unitronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports Audi RS3 LMS TCR after sustaining damage just six laps into the race when Miller slid into the Turn 11 tire barrier. They saw their lead trimmed to 170 points over Robert Wickens and Harry Gottsacker, who finished third in the No. 33 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian Hyundai Elantra N TCR.
The Michelin Pilot Challenge is back in action on Sept. 21 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 120.