Championship leads to maintain and points to make up for AMR teams at Road Atlanta

Another triple header from the SRO sanctioned GT4 America Series comes our way this weekend with the Sprint and Sprint X classes having made their way over most of the width of the USA from Sonoma in California two weeks ago to Road Atlanta in Georgia for another race programme that starts this Friday.

Sonoma saw an almost Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 domination in the Sprint races Am Class with spoils shared between the Flying Lizard car of Michael Dinan, the Rearden Racing cars of Jeff Burton and Paul Terry as well as the Flying Lizard car of Dinan and Robbie Foley and the BSport Racing Vantage of Bryan Putt and Kenton Koch in the Sprint X races.


The only AMR racing team that didn't fair so well two weeks ago was the #33 RS1 Notland Racing pairing of Matt Dalton and Pat Gallagher after Dalton suffered a sizeable accident during Free Practice that, despite its overnight rebuild, suffered from cooling issues during the two races it managed to enter followed by a DNS for the final race.

Since then, we understand that the team have replaced the V8 power plant within the #33 car as a quicker process than trying to identify the cause of their overheating issues with the old engine still in location as well as re-covering the bare carbon front end bodywork with their distinctive red, white and black colour scheme. A subsequent shake down test has also been conducted by the team before they shipped out for Braselton.


Fifteen cars are due to feature within the weekends three - fifty minute single driver Sprint races including again the #59 Paul Terry and #191 Jeff Burton cars from the Rearden Racing stable together with the #210 Flying Lizard car for Michael Burton as the Series still plays catch up with events missed due to the lockdown in the USA in early summer.


Then for the three - hour long compulsory stop with driver change Sprint X races we expected the #15 BSport Racing car for Bryan Putt/Kenton Koch, #21 Flying Lizard for Michael Dinan/Robbie Foley, #33 RS1 Notland Racing car for Matt Dalton/Pat Gallagher and the #91 Rearden car for Jeff Burton.Vesko Kozarov. Amongst the full twenty four car entry you will also scan over the names of Ian James and Roman de Angelis taking part in the GT4 Series for the first time this season but this time swapping their IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship AMR Vantage GTD for that of a Panoz Esperante Avezzano that each will race in the Pro-Am with another co-driver each.


With a track diary that starts as early as tomorrow morning for the Sprint and Sprint X runners, we have already seen that Rearden Racing have been at the circuit getting in some vital test and set up mileage over the weekend before Wednesday makes three private testing sessions available to the teams before they move onto officially times sessions on Thursday with Qualifying and Race 1 of each on Friday. Fastest laps per race then denote each cars starting position in the next.


In the Championship standings to date, the Flying Lizard and Rearden Racing teams hold a commanding one-two position respectively in the Sprint Am Class whilst Flying Lizards look to chase down a 16 point deficit in to the Sprint X Pro-Am table going into this event.

Photo credits - GT4 America