Hopefully eight Aston Martins to visit the Glen for next IMSA and Michelin Pilot Challenge rounds
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Rounds so far from Daytona., Sebring, Long Beach and Laguna Seca, this six-hour rounds features as both the fifth round of the championship so far as well as the third round of the Endurance Cup.
Full season entries from the Heart of Racing team obviously make a return to racing duty with their two AMR Vantage GTD’s for both Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas in the #23 GTD Pro car as well as the #27 GTD car of Roman De Angelis, Marco Sorenson and (being an Endurance round) Ian James for the first track action since their Le Mans 24Hr AMR Vantage GTE debut earlier this month.
They in turn will be again joined by the #44 Magnus Racing AMR of John Potter, Andy Lally and Spencer Pumpelly within a combined line up of 57 cars across all five classes of the Championship.
After a difficult round last time out in California, the #23 crew slip down to P5 in the GTD Pro table whilst the #27 car presently sits in P3 within the GTD class but within the GTD only Endurance Cup table, the #27 car sits three points clear at the top with the #44 Magnus crew just six points behind in P3, so all is still to race for.
They in turn will be joined by five AMR Vantage GT4’s competing within this weekend’s fifth round of the season so far. Having gone something off piste last time out with a true street circuit configuration in Detroit, that experience proved expensive for the #19 Van Der Steur pairing of Rory Van Der Steur and Austin McCusker after the #19 was effectively taken out (and later confirmed as written off) by an errant BMW M4 GT4 going into the tight hairpin configuration.
With a new chassis being delivered to them this week, the team may – may not have time to prepare that car in time for the start of track activity on Thursday.
They (hopefully) will be joined by the pair of Team TGM Aston Martins after they too had a torrid day out around the streets of Detroit with first the #64 car of Ted Giovanis (with Owen Trinkler) damaging its front suspension/steering in the opening laps to that race with both High and Matt Plumb also struggling against the greater BoP’d cars around them.
The green #88 Archangel Aston of Todd Coleman and Billy Johnson also return to the IMSA after the Coleman walked away in disgust from the SRO America Series due to the penalties applied to his Pro driver and we also see the return of the #09 Stoner Car Care Aston Martin from the Automatic Racing team as drivers Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi continue to dip a racing boot in and out of various race programmes this season.
This weekend’s two-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race is due to start at 15:45hrs (local) on Saturday with the Six Hours of the Glen IMSA race at 10:40 hrs (local) on Sunday.
Photo credits – Teams / Series / Jamey Price Photo
