Random Vandals Racing’s Kenton Koch was able to run down and pass Smooge Racing’s Corey Lewis with 13 minutes to go Saturday (Aug. 17) in turn 3. From there, Koch pulled away to win Pirelli GT4 America SprintX Race No. 1 at Road America with teammate Kevin Boehm. It is Boehm and Koch’s second win of the year.
Boehm and Koch’s margin of victory was 4.364 seconds over AutoTechnic Racing’s Zac Anderson and Colin Garrett. Rennsport One’s John Capestro-Dubets and Eric Filgueiras were third in their Porsche, then Smooge Racing’s Tyler Gonzalez and Corey Lewis. ACI Motorsports’ Curt Swearingin and Kay van Berlo were fifth.
The top-four finishers were the top-four teams in the Silver class. The Heart of Racing’s Hannah Greenmeier and Hannah Grisham were fifth in class, eighth overall.
Capestro-Dubets started from the overall pole in his Porsche with Gonzalez alongside. Gonzalez got the run on the outside of turn 1 and was able to clear Capestro-Dubets to take the overall lead. Further back, chaos broke out.
OnlyFans Racing/P1 Groupe’s Matt Bell was hit from behind by BimmerWorld Racing’s James Walker Jr. and spun in front of much of the pack. Vogel was then hit in the driver’s door by Random Vandals Racing’s Paul Sparta. Blackdog Speed Shop’s Tony Gaples was also involved.
Everyone was ok after the crash, but the view of the crash from Bell’s car was truly frightening. The OnlyFans Racing Mercedes is a write-off due to frame damage.
Once the green came back out, Gonzalez was able to open up a decent advantage over Capestro-Dubets. That held up until the mid-race pit stops.
Most of the leaders pitted at the first possible opportunity to make their driver changes. DeAngelis chose to stay out to maximize his time in the car.
Those stops ultimately didn’t change too much on the surface. The Heart of Racing had a slightly slower stop that ended up dropping deAngelis’ teammate Gray Newell from third to fifth, but the Silver contenders held station.
However, there was a quirky situation on the Smooge Racing pit stop in that Gonzalez stopped the car short in his pit box. He indicated in an interview with Clark afterwards that the Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO has an auto-shut off in the pits and that it failed to engage, leading to the car creeping forward. That creeping resulted in the stewards issuing a post-race five-second penalty to the No. 68 Toyota.
The man on the move was Koch in the…
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