Titles still to be won at final round of GT4 America (UPDATED)
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Having started way back at the beginning of March, the SRO GT4 America Series reaches its concluding round from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend after a gruelling five round season so far where the Series has played catch up with the global situation.
Starting off at the Circuit of the Americas, the Series came to a sudden stop with cars actually on track at the their intended second round from St Petersburg as something called COVID-19 locked down the continental United States.
Not starting up again until nearly four months later at the picturesque Virginia International Raceway did the four teams running the 2019 specification of Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 car get to race again within the Series Sprint and Sprint X arenas. Sadly, the ongoing travel restrictions came at a cost as the Canadian based Roberts Racing team was unable to re-enter the USA because of COVID-19 precautions meaning that the former British GT GT4 Championship winning GT4 from the Beechdean AMR team would not be seen again after their early audition at CoTA.
With AMR cars entered by the Rearden Racing, BSport Racing, Rennsport 1 Notlad Racing and Flying Lizard teams, the new Aston GT4 has been nothing short of dominating in both the Am side of the Sprint Class and in the Pro-Am side of Sprint X.
With AMR cars entered by the Rearden Racing, BSport Racing, Rennsport 1 Notlad Racing and Flying Lizard teams, the new Aston GT4 has been nothing short of dominating in both the Am side of the Sprint Class and in the Pro-Am side of Sprint X.
UPDATE - Jeff Burton will not be competing this weekend after terminal engine damage was sustained during an earlier session
Flying Lizards Michael Dinan has run an incredible near 100% podium success rate – only missing out through technical issues or being absent from the racetrack like he was on day two of three at CoTA two weeks ago. From that performance, Dinan secured the Sprint Am Drivers Championship at that event despite having missed one day of racing.
In addition to that, the final two races at IMS in both the Sprint and Sprint X remain critical to all contending teams as the Sprint Am Teams Championship and Sprint X Pro-Am Drivers and Sprint X Pro-Am Teams Championships remain up for grabs with Rearden Racing being the closest contenders in Sprint Am Teams and Dinan and co-driver Robbie Foley being just three points down in the Sprint X Pro-Am Drivers title hunt.
Other runnings who have enjoyed podium success along the way include the Rearden Racing #59 of Paul Terry and the #91 of Jeff Burton. Burton has struggled most recently with accident damage and whilst Terry must be ruing the errors made in earlier rounds that lost him valuable points as the season progressed. The #15 AMR of BSport Racings Bryan Putt and AMR Academy Driver Kenton Koch have progressed massively over the season as they got to grips with their Aston Martin and only a pre-event testing accident kept them away from another podium finish last time out at CoTA.
That leaves the beautiful liveried #33 Rennsport 1 Notlad Racing AMR of Matt Dalton and Pat Gallagher. Having switched to the Aston at the start of the season it has taken Dalton a bit longer to find ‘the grove’ but their persistence was rewarded with a class Sprint X P3 podium in the first race at Road America. This team will not be competing in the final two races of the GT4 America Series as they have entered the banner event at the weekend in the eight hour Intercontinental GT Challenge.
UPDATE - The #33 is now competing again within its usual GT4 America Sprint X class this weekend.
In a grid of approximately twenty three cars, the #33 Aston Martin is the sole AMR present in the event with the full IGTC entries electing not to travel to the USA. Gallagher and Dalton will be joined by Jonathon Taylor in the field of ten GT4 cars.
Track action for the event gets underway today.
Photo credits – GT4 America / Flying Lizards / Rearden Racing / BSport
Track action for the event gets underway today.
Photo credits – GT4 America / Flying Lizards / Rearden Racing / BSport