UPDATED - Back to Watkins Glen for IMSA's second visit to the picturesque circuit in NY State

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Well, if six hours of Watkins Glen wasn’t enough for you last weekend with the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship an then another four hours of the supporting Michelin Pilot Challenge Series, then this weekend we get to watch it all over again as many of those cars return for another bout of racing from the picturesque racetrack in New York State.

Not six and four hour races this time, as the IMSA governing body have taken this opportunity to stay at a racetrack for consecutive weekends in lieu of their intended round from the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the ‘good old’ COVID-19 travel restrictions problem of old.

Whilst it's obviously sad to see CTMP miss out again with the Championship, the racing produced last weekend at the Watkins Glen was second to none in terms of excitement and anticipation.

From those two races we saw the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin racing crew of Roman de Angelis, Ross Gunn and Ian James come through to take a late P3 finish at the end of their six hours to go with their race win of last time out at Detroit. On top of that, the aptly numbered #23 Notlad Racing AMR Vantage GT4 of Pat Gallagher and Stevan McAleer produced a near dominating performance to claim their first overall race win in an IMSA series at only their second time of asking after the Daytona opener this year.

This time around, the #23 Heart of Racing car reverts back to their two-driver line up of De Angelis and Gunn for this event whilst in the Michelin Pilot Challenge 120 race, we will this time only be seeing the #7 Volt Racing car of Alan Brynjolfsson/Trent Hindman and the #09 Stoner Car Care Aston of Ramin Abdolvahabi/Rob Ecklin.

Both races take place this FRIDAY.

UPDATE - The AMR Vantage GT4 has since been hit by a 30kg increase in base weight since the cars race win in the four hour event last week!

Photo credits – Teams / CJ Motorsport