DXDT Racing’s Tommy Milner took the overall lead away under caution when Regulator Racing’s Philip Ellis made his mandatory pit stop. From there, Milner held on to win a caution-plagued Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Race No. 1 from VIRginia International Raceway Saturday (July 20) with teammate Alec Udell. It is the team’s third straight victory.
The margin of victory was 1.654 seconds over Wright Motorsports’ Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer. Rennsport One’s Trent Hindman and Spencer Pumpelly were third in their Porsche, followed by the Acura of Racers Edge Motorsports’ Luca Mars and Zach Veach. GMG Racing’s Tom Sargent and Kyle Washington were fifth.
Regulator Racing’s Philip Ellis started from pole in his Mercedes-AMG GT3. The plan was to pull away from the field as much as possible in the first half of the race to give teammate Jeff Burton the largest possible cushion. That did not come to pass.
Less than 10 minutes into the race, DXDT Racing’s Scott Smithson went wide exiting turn 10 in his Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. The Corvette bounded through the grass, then spun.
Smithson’s car came to rest on the pavement and he was able to get it restarted. However, he went off into the grass while trying to turn around and got stuck in the wet grass to bring out the first caution.
The trouble wasn’t over for Smithson. Once he got pulled out of the wet grass, the car developed braking issues. He ended up locking up and sliding off course while trying to catch the field and hit the tires in turn 4 just as the race was restarting. That triggered a second caution.
The second crash required a tow back to the pits, but didn’t end up being the end of the day of Smithson or Bryan Sellers. They ended up finishing 14 laps down.
Behind Ellis, ST Racing’s Bill Auberlen was able to jump over Udell to take the Pro lead and second overall on the first lap. Once out front, Auberlen was unable to pull away significantly.
32 minutes into the race, Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Elias Sabo spun out in turn 4. This ended up being a similar situation to what happened to Smithson the first time. Sabo was able to recover, but ran off-course trying to resume. He then got stuck in the wet grass and drew a caution.
The green came back out a lap before the mid-race pit window opened up. The yellows effectively ruined Regulator Racing’s strategy.
Half of the field pitted at the first possible…
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