ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — With 40 minutes remaining in Saturday’s Road America 120, the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge field was brought on to pit lane and the red flag displayed due to lightning in the area.
While the conditions eventually improved, there was not enough time to complete full-course caution procedures and restart the race, so the checkered flag was displayed.
As a result, KohR Motorsports took home its third Grand Sport class win of the season in the No. 59 Ford Mustang driven by Dean Martin and Jack Roush Jr.
“There is no real preparing for it,” said Roush about facing uncertain weather conditions. “You just have to go out there and take risks and make the best decisions you can in each moment and that’s all you can do.”
“Those rainy conditions, they’re never the same so you’ve just got to take what the weather brings you and hope for the best,” Martin added. “We’ve struggled a little bit because it’s a new car, it’s the first car that was built. We’ve had a few gremlins, but the teams worked really well to work everything out.
“The guys at Ford and the guys at Multimatic have been extremely helpful with that, very supportive and we think we’ve got everything sorted now. We would’ve liked to run the whole race and get another race distance done, but the team’s done great and we have a lot of support from Ford and Roush and Multimatic, so it’s been a good year.”
For the third consecutive race, Dillon Machavern and Dylan Murcott matched their best series finish of second-place in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche Cayman GT4 MR. Rounding out the podium was the No. 69 McLaren GT4 of Jesse Lazare and Chris Green for Motorsports In Action.
The red flag replaced the second full-course caution, caused by Charlie Putnam in the No. 99 Aston Martin Vantage stopping in the grass off-track as other teams were cycling through pit stops.
The race results did not favor those teams at the top of the GS championship standings.
Points leaders Trent Hindman and Cameron Cassels were caught in eighth place in their No. 12 Bodymotion Racing Porsche Cayman GT4 when the red flag emerged after the team had just completed its pit stop.
For Paul Holton and Matt Plumb, who entered the race second in the point standings, what began as a promising weekend turned to disappointment before the race started. The No. 76 C360R McLaren GT4 co-drivers were set to lead the field to green after Holton collected his third pole of the season earlier in the day, but the car did not make the pre-race grid and resorted to starting from the back of the pack.
The problems continued though as the car stopped on track during the warm up laps due to electrical issues. The team was unable to recover and finished 13th.
Source : speedsport.com
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