It was a long time coming, but CarBahn Motorsports finally found its way back to victory lane in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge.
Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal put in an impressive drive in Saturday’s Indianapolis Motor Speedway 120 to capture the overall and Grand Sport (GS) class win in the No. 39 BMW M4 GT4. It’s the first time CarBahn has won a Michelin Pilot Challenge race in nearly four years, when Westphal and then-co-driver Tyler McQuarrie took the checkered flag at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Halloween 2020.
“The team deserves it, they worked so hard with such precise detail in the car,” Westphal said. “We’ve always had potential; it’s just been putting it together. It’s great for everybody.”
McAlister started sixth in the 20-car GS field and was still there when he turned the No. 39 over to Westphal on a pit stop under a full-course caution some 45m into the two-hour race. Westphal then battled his way past GS points leader Matt Plumb in the No. 46 Team TGM Aston Martin Vantage GT4 and both Turner Motorsport BMWs to seize control.
From there, it was a matter of holding off the charging Philip Ellis in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4, which with co-driver Bryce Ward was seeking back-to-back wins at Indy.
The gap in the closing half hour varied depending on who was mashing the accelerator harder – Westphal or Ellis – with Westphal prevailing by 3.658s.
“I’ve raced against Ellis in GTD (IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship) and I knew he was quick,” Westphal said. “Every time I would push, I’d pull out a couple tenths. He’d push and he’d pull out a couple tenths. … I think we were both playing the cat-and-mouse game trying to catch each other without making big mistakes, and the gap stayed pretty stagnant.”
For Westphal, it’s Michelin Pilot Challenge career win No. 4 and his first since that Halloween triumph four years ago. For McAlister, it’s win No. 1 at a very memorable venue.
“I’ve been in this series almost three full years now and I haven’t even been on the podium,” McAlister said. “It’s great to finally come out and get top of the podium – especially at Indy. It’s amazing!”
Plumb, with co-driver Paul Holton, brought the No. 46 Team TGM Aston Martin home in fourth place. With the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport finishing ninth, it stretched the GS lead for Plumb and the No. 46 to 110 points unofficially over Stevan McAleer, Trent Hindman and the No. 28. Only the season finale, the Fox Factory 120 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Oct. 11, remains.
“As we learned in the last two races, things can go real south, real quick,” Plumb said, referring to finishes of 11th and 15th in the past two races. “We played this whole season the same thing, which is take what you can get and don’t get upset. So, fourth was great. … I think we probably could’ve done a little bit better but we’ll take it.”
Chaos early, strategy late brings Hyundai TCR win
Chaos and strategy, early and late, Hyundai had the Touring Car (TCR) class covered. After a chaotic start and an early full course yellow, the No. 99 Victor Gonzalez Racing Team Hyundai Elantra N TCR bolt rocketed from deep in the field to the lead and looked a potential winner. Until, that is, lap 22 when a hapless Morgan Burkhard found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and was punted into the Turn 1 grass by a Grand Sport (GS) competitor.
Burkhard’s misfortune opened the door for the No. 98 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb Agajanian Hyundai to take the lead. Mark Wilkins and, later, Mason Filippi duly maintained that lead for the remainder of the race, leading a 1-2 sweep for the team ahead of the No. 33 Hyundai of teammates Harry Gottsacker and Robert Wickens. TCR championship leaders Chris Miller and Mikey Taylor finished third in the No. 17 Unitronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports Audi RS3 LMS TCR.
Although the No. 98 Hyundai led the final two-thirds of the race and enjoyed a relatively comfortable 4.427s lead over the No. 33 Hyundai at the finish, Filippi himself was by no means comfortable. He’d taken the helm from Wilkins on lap 26 and as the laps clicked off with no sign of a full-course yellow to slow the pace — or the rate of fuel consumption — Filippi slowed his pace by two or more seconds a lap to make the finish without a late splash of VP Racing fuel.
“The last two laps [the team] said we had five liters of fuel left,” said Filippi. “I lost the calculator on my dash, so I was just going off what the team told me to do. A huge thank you to Bryan Herta Autosport and Hyundai. The car handled so well, we could save fuel and set a good pace.”
Wickens also slowed his pace in the final going, but for different reasons.
“Saving fuel wasn’t a problem,” he explained. “I was trying to manage my tires. I don’t know what I did wrong but for some reason I seemed to have worn out the left front more than anticipated. I banked enough fuel early on which, unfortunately, built up the gap [to the No. 98] and I was never able to bring it back.”
The JDC-Miller Audi battled back from an early penalty, as Miller was hit with a drive-through penalty for jumping the start when the TCR field unexpectedly slowed to avoid a bunched-up GS field.
Relegated to the back of the TCR field, the JDC-Miller Audi stopped for fuel during the lap 22 full-course yellow, which enabled the car to go the rest of the way on just one more stop. They ran much of the remainder of the race in second place before that second stop dropped them to fourth, even as the lead Hyundais and the No. 72 Pegram Racing Audi RS3 LMS SEQ tried to go the distance on a single stop. Lapping two seconds or more faster than the cars ahead of him, Taylor caught and passed the Pegram Audi in the closing laps but was too far behind the Herta Hyundais to threaten the lead.
“The fundamental thing is we have several less liters of fuel than the Hyundais,” said Taylor, “They can run 15m longer than we can on a full fuel run. We weren’t holding back. We did everything we could to beat them.
“We maximized the package we have. The team is throwing everything they can at the car, they’ve been giving us great pit stops and, hey, we’re having fun. Being on the podium at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is pretty special.”
Although second place enabled Gottsacker, Wickens and the No. 33 Hyundai to edge a little closer in the championship points standings, Taylor, Miller and the No. 17 JDC-Miller Audi head to Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with an unofficial 120-point margin over the defending champion No. 33 team.