They say good things come in threes, and that was certainly true for Paul Miller Racing today with Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers scoring their third victory at the Long Beach Grand Prix in as many years.
Starting from the third position, Snow was able to leapfrog into P2 at the start. After his 35-minute stint, it was up to the crew and co-driver Bryan Sellers to take the No. 1 Quartz Engine Oil-backed BMW M4 GT3 machine to the finish.
During their one pitstop in the 100-minute event, the crew was able to leapfrog the IMSA GTD leader by virtue of a three second faster pitstop. From there, Sellers defended for more than an hour to keep the No. 27 behind.
The win marks the team’s second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of 2023, following a P1 performance at the 12 Hours of Sebring in March. It also catapults them to P1 in the standings. The Paul Miller Racing team now hold a 99-point advantage over P2 in the GTD championship, after entering the weekend just one point off of P1 in the title race.
“Three wins in three years at Long Beach! It’s an incredible accomplishment for this team,” Paul Miller Racing team owner, Paul Miller, said.
“I’m bummed to have missed the race thanks to the recent weather in Florida, but you can bet I was watching from home and cheering the entire time!
“Winning Sebring, winning at Long Beach, 2023 is off to an amazing start and hopefully we can keep the momentum rolling through the rest of the season.”
In addition to bolstering their full-season championship points tally, the win also puts the Paul Miller Racing team P1 after the first race of the IMSA Sprint Cup. Snow and Sellers won the Sprint Cup in 2022—a championship-within-a-championship for races two hours, 40-minutes or less—never losing the points lead en route to that championship win.
“Words can’t express how proud I am of this team,” Paul Miller Racing team manager, Mitchell Simmons, said.
“To do the hat trick here at Long Beach is one of the highlights of my racing career and is absolutely attributed to the teamwork of this Paul Miller Racing organization. This team’s ability to perform at such a high level and capitalize on every opportunity cannot be overstated.
“We came out of Sebring with a win with the 12th fastest car, we came out of Long Beach with a win with the fifth fastest car, that’s 100% because of the team. I could not be more proud.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns to California for the next event, the Course de Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on May 12-14.
Madison Snow
“Three in a row! I never thought that this would happen again. It’s really because of the consistency in this program. Same team, same drivers, and this time we also had the same car. If we could pull it off two times in a row, there was definitely more pressure! But now that the pressure is all over, I’m glad we made it happen. It didn’t start out as well as the last two years, starting from third instead of from pole. We knew we had our work cut out for us. The start went great for me, ended up second right at the green flag—which to be honest, was about the best that I could do with all of the GTD Pro cars between us and P1 in GTD. So I brought the car in P2, did all I could, and from there it was the crew and Bryan leaving the pits that got us this win. The crew did an excellent pit stop, we gained a couple of seconds there on the No. 27 and that put us ahead of him, but then Bryan had to spend his entire stint defending that lead. It wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad and so proud of this team that we did it.”
Bryan Sellers
“It’s pretty unbelievable! It’s hard to get the smile off my face at the moment! It’s funny, this one in a lot of ways was very different and meant so much more than the last two years. We didn’t control the race, we didn’t win from pole—this race was won in the pit stop cycle. Madison had two phenomenal final laps before we brought the car in, and then the crew was amazing on our stop. And then I feel like I did a pretty good job on those first out laps to keep us up there! When you look at the definition of a team win, this is it. We were put in a position where everyone had to perform when it counted, and we did. That made me so happy! You can’t just say one person did this, one person did that, it makes me so proud that we won as a team, with everyone contributing. If there’s one regret I have about this weekend, it’s that Mr. Miller couldn’t be there to celebrate with us. He’s always here in spirit and I’m sure he’s jumping up and down at home.”
Source. Paul Miller Racing
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