Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America saw all three classes won by first timers at Watkins Glen International today. Round seven of the 16-race season witnessed an unprecedented sweep of the top step of the podium by drivers who either had never stood there before or had not done so this season.
Porsche veteran Jason Hart (Flower Mound, Texas) captured his first
overall Pro class victory in the No. 20 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car. Hart is a veteran of the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport at other levels of the Porsche Motorsport Pyramid, but this was his first win in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car.
“Amazing to win one of these races,” Hart said. “This means a lot. With the competitiveness of this field and the uniqueness of this car… in a good way, you have to spend some time in it to get fast. Kudos to the team. We’ve changed everything we are allowed to change, and we have just found a package that I like. The team was like, ‘Well, if you like it we are going to race it.’ We had some nice race pace. I hurt for (Will) Martin but when you win a race, you win a race. Thank you so much to MDK Motorsports for all of the work they have put in to getting these cars to where they are at and to Scott Noble. Without Scott Noble, I am not here. My recommendation to the kids in this series is that they just have to get older since I am probably older than the top five combined.”
In the Pro-Am class it was Jeff Mosing (Austin, Texas) in the No. 56 Porsche prepared by Topp Racing.
“It is an honor and a pleasure to be back with Porsche Motorsport North America and Topp Racing to run another season, Mosing said. “We hunted a setup all weekend and we found something in qualifying that helped us get the race done. Always love racing Efrin (Castro). He is always a good clean racer and a lot of fun. He did a great job. This is something we really needed. I am looking forward to another great race with all the guys tomorrow.”
The Am class was captured by John Goetz (Weston, Connecticut) in the Wright Motorsports No. 57. While Goetz has two previous victories in the series, this was his first win of 2023.
Riley Dickinson (No. 53 Kellymoss) finished in second place retaining the Pro class points lead. It was only the second time this season the Texan did not win. He holds a 57-point lead (177 to 120) over Tom Sargent who finished in third place.
The second race of the weekend – round eight of the series – takes the green flag on Saturday at 12:20 p.m. ET. All races air on the Peacock streaming app, on IMSA.tv and at PorscheCarreraCup.us before being archived on Porsche Motorsport North America TV at https://www.youtube.com/c/PorscheMotorsportNorthAmerica.