LEXINGTON, Oh. — FASTMD Racing with Remstar’s Jagger Jones led flag-to-flag from pole to win the first IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge race of the weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Saturday afternoon (June 8). It is Jones’ third straight overall victory and comes in a tough week for him after the death of his grandfather, 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones.
“The whole team gave me a really fast car [today],” Jones told Frontstretch after the race. “It was up to me to get through traffic safely and keep it on the track. That’s what we were able to do in opening up a big gap and controlling the race.
Jones’ margin of victory was 7.567 seconds over US RaceTronics’ Steven Aghakhani, although the advantage was as high as 11 seconds at one point. Escuderia ABRO’s Miguel Villagomez was third, then Rick Ware Racing with Ave Motorsports’ Ryan Phinny. Ave Motorsports’ Seth Lucas was fifth.
Jones started from pole in the sole Duqueine M30-D08-Nissan in the field. He was eight-tenths of a second faster than Aghakhani in qualifying and was determined to run away at the start. Sure enough, he was able to open up a gap at the start.
The lead was steady around three seconds until Jones caught the rear of the field. Good form in traffic allowed the lead to increase to seven seconds. Meanwhile, Villagomez was able to get past for second when Aghakhani was trapped behind slower cars.
Aghakhani was faster than Villagomez and by the time they cleared the lapped traffic, he was able to run Villagomez back down. He was able to retake the position with 16 laps to go, but he could do nothing to prevent Jones from winning once again.
In GSX, Motorsports In Action’s Jesse Lazare started from pole in the sole McLaren Artura GT4 in the field. KohR Motorsports’ Luca Mars drove up to second in his Ford Mustang GT4 and gave chase.
However, there are some clerical things that drivers have to do during the pace laps before the green comes out. One of those things is to line up on the correct side of the road. Lazare lined up on the wrong side. As a result, he was given a drive-through penalty 10 minutes into the race.
Lazare’s penalty gave Mars the class lead with a five-second advantage over Thaze Competition’s Josh Green. Lazare ended up back in seventh, 18 seconds back.
The race was fairly clean, but with just under 20 minutes to go, Thaze Competition’s Eddie Killeen spun in the Keyhole after…
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