Dinan and Flying Lizards AMR dominate day 2 of GT4 America at Road America

Having already scored on class win on the opening race day of the GT4 America's visit to Road America for another one of their race recovery triple headers, Michael Dinan and his Flying Lizard team went on to dominate proceedings with two more class and outright wins yesterday.

Starting with the second of three fifty minute Sprint races, the timings from race 1 are used to determined the grid order via their previous fastest laps. That placed the #59 Rearden Racing AMR Vantage of Paul Terry in P3 overall (P1 in Am Class) on the grid with the yellow accented AMR of Dinan next to him in P4 (P2 in class) with the #191 Rearden car of Jeff Burton again missing out as his team worked on to repair the damage of race 1's smash that took him and another car out in the wet on Friday.


As opposed to the wet of Friday afternoon, the now reduced starting grid of twelve cars were to enjoy a bright, sunny start to their second race of the weekend with Dinan being the more aware of the AMR runners to mug Terry at the start to take P3 from him as the pack went into turn 1. With the two Pro Class cars ahead, Dinan found himself being able to run with these guys as htheir collective pace gapped them from those in P4 and P5.

After twenty minutes of running Terry was eventually able to take the Ford Mustang of Staveley for position, lifting himself up to P4 overall and still P2 in class but minutes later Terry went into T1 too fast and spun himself around on the kerb (much like what his team mate Burton did in race 1 on Friday) to quickly loose out on his earlier hard work as he soon dropped down to P6 overall.


As the two leading Pro cars pushed on ahead, Dinan found himself being dropped into the no-mans land between them and the chasing pack but with the minutes counting down all he had to do was to keep it on the track to secure his 7th class win of the season.

So similar to race 1 of Friday, Race 2 produced another double AMR Am Class podium as Terry did enough to (a) keep his title challenge alive against Dinan and (b) secure his second podium of the weekend by claiming P6 overall and P3 in Class.


Then came after that perhaps Dinan's and Flying Lizards best performance of the season so with a P12 to overall race win in the second Sprint X race yesterday afternoon.

With the starting grid again being affected by the torrential rains of Friday, it wasn't possible for all the drivers to set a competitive lap time being Qualifying was red flagged due to the deteriorating track conditions. That again meant that many cars were out of their natural position at the start of the race and that certainly made for some very entertaining racing.


The #15 BSPort Racing AMR of AMR Academy Driver Kenton Koch was the highest placed AMR at the start and he certainly didn't waste anytime at the start as he both held onto his starting position and then pushed the Silver Cup drivers ahead. After Pat Gallagher's race of the season so far yesterday when he and his #33 Rennsport One car claimed their first podium of the year, he too was on a mission from his P12 start as he battled to keep ahead of Robbie Foleys #21 Flying Lizard AMR who started one place behind.

A slower BMW in P8 effectively served as an early chicane for the first five minutes of running that allowed the front runners to establish a large gap to the pack behind by the time that Gallagher finally got past. Foley meanwhile was having something of a slow or calculated start as his position in the field was steady as he had only climbed up to P11 by then.


With Koch enjoying himself at the front keeping the Silver #2 Porsche busy, Gallagher had moved up to P6 by the time that the pit window opened as Foley was carefully negotiating the teams fellow McLaren 570s for P8.

With the Pro's having done their work it was now down to their amateur drivers to capitalise upon any headway that had been made up till then. Bryan Putt emerged in overall second after his swap into the white #15 car with Dinan now up to P7 and Matt Dalton P10 in his #33 car.


The Flying Lizard team trimmed as much time off at their stop as they could and had to invoke their pit stop 'joker' by actually undercutting their minimum time by about a second. Having rode their luck there, Dinan 'rode his luck' on track with an outstanding demonstration of confidence and speed. Catching those in front by the rate of 2-3 seconds per lap it wasn't too long before the #21 car was upon to P4 overall but only had ten minutes or so remaining to make up the 10 seconds to the leading BMW.

Having dispatched Putt for P3 overall it only took Dinan another five minutes to get onto the tail of the leader and with a brave move into T1 on the final lap, Dinan had taken the overall lead - something that he would even extend to nearly 4 seconds at the chequered flag.



With Foley and Dinan claiming the top step, the #15 BSport Racing crew of Putt and Koch had also done enough to claim their second Sprint X podium of the weekend by finishing P5 overall and P3 in Pro-Am. The #33 Rennsport One AMR of Gallagher and Dalton would eventually finish P10 overall and P7 in class.

So that's yet another great result for the Aston Martin Racing runners in both Sprint and Sprint X with still one more race each on Sunday!!

Photo credits - GT$ America / Flying Lizards / CSJ Motorsport