Rennsport One’s Trent Hindman took the overall lead away from Regulator Racing’s Jeff Burton with 26 minutes to go. From there, he was able to hold off a charging Elliott Skeer to win Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Race No. 1 at Sebring International Raceway Saturday (May 4) with teammate Spencer Pumpelly.
For Hindman, this marks his first victory in the series since Road America Race No. 2 in 2020. Back then, he was driving for Racers Edge Motorsports in the Silver class. For Pumpelly, it’s his first overall victory since Lime Rock in 2018.
Hindman and Pumpelly’s margin of victory was .789 seconds over Wright Motorsports’ Skeer and Adam Adelson. ST Racing’s Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen were third in their BMW, then Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg. Burton and Philip Ellis were fifth.
Philip Ellis started from the pole in his Mercedes. Much like in Race No. 1 at Sonoma, the grandmaster plan was to try to drive away from the field as much as possible before teammate Jeff Burton would get into the car.
The strategy nearly didn’t work out for Ellis as Rennsport One’s Spencer Pumpelly nearly swept around the outside for the lead in turn 1 on the start. However, Ellis was able to hold him off.
Sure enough, Ellis was eventually able to open up a decent gap. 18 minutes into the race, he was six seconds ahead of Pumpelly and nearly 17 seconds ahead of Samantha Tan, who was second in the Pro-Am class.
Further back, Saturday’s race marked the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS debut for the new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R with DXDT Racing. Scott Smithson started ninth, but dropped to the rear of the field.
16 minutes into the race, Smithson was battling Chouest-Povoledo Racing’s Ross Chouest for position when the two came together in turn 16. Chouest spun and suffered a suspension failure that ultimately put him out of the race.
Smithson was forced to make two pit stops for repairs after the incident. In addition, SRO America officials determined that Smithson was responsible for the incident, so he also had to serve a drive-through penalty. Smithson and Bryan Sellers ended up retiring due to issues with the left front suspension.
Behind Ellis, Pumpelly was fast enough to hang for a while before dropping off. That pace was still more than enough to pull away from Choksey and Mars, who fought among themselves for second in Pro.
At the mid-race pit…
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