Rennsport One’s Eric Filguerias and Stevan McAleer continued their strong form by winning the first Pirelli GT4 America SprintX race of the weekend Saturday (Aug. 20) at Road America. It is the duo’s eighth overall victory of the year in nine races.
“[Today’s race] was a testiment to Stevan McAleer and his driving ability,” Filguerias said after the race. “He gave me the car in position to win.”
This weekend, Rennsport One switched things up. Instead of Filguerias starting on Saturday, McAleer was given that role. Since the team is running in the Silver class, switching of roles is completely ok. The result was that McAleer qualified his Porsche on the pole. Once the race got underway, McAleer was able to pull out to a decent lead over the pack.
Behind McAleer, Conquest Racing’s Gavin Sanders was second and running strong. SMOOGE Racing’s Kevin Conway was right on his heels.
The race was ultimately clean until the mid-race pit stops. Then, trouble struck on the pit lane. The access road to pit road narrows considerably when it goes underneath a pedestrian bridge. Conway was trying to make as much time as possible getting into the pits, while Sanders was a bit more conservative. Conway ended up running into the back of Sanders at the pit in line, damaging both cars.
Conway knocked the right side headlight out of his Supra and had some bodywork damage, but he got off easier. Sanders had significant damage to the left rear of his Mercedes that required significant repair. Sanders and Michai Stephens would eventually finish 26th overall.
With McAleer and Filguerias’ immediate competition taken out of contention, Filguerias ended up with a 21-second lead after the pit stops. That was despite the pit stop timer not working inside of the No. 18 Porsche, meaning that the team actually lost nine seconds during their stop. Filguerias was able to expand the advantage to over 24 seconds at one point before he backed it down a little. Regardless, it was an easy overall victory for Rennsport One.
Filguerias and McAleer’s overall margin of victory was 15.817 seconds over Premier Racing’s Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer. NOLAsport’s Jason Hart and Scott Noble were third, then The Heart of Racing’s Ian James and Gray Newell. Dexter Racing’s Ryan Dexter and Dominic Starkweather were fifth.
In the Silver class, Filguerias and McAleer won by 33.086 seconds over Dexter and Starkweather. Despite the rear…
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