IMSA Championships all heating up after weekends visit to VIR

The obvious news of success from yesterday was the Heart of Racing team securing a double podium as both the #23 GTD Pro entry of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas secured another third placed finish together whilst the team’s GTD pairing of Roman De Angelis and Zachary Robichon secured a finish one step better second within their GTD class.

Whilst these results do close the points gap for Gunn at the head of the GTD Pro Drivers and Team’s Champiosnhip to just seventeen points, it also highlights a larger pack of drivers closing in from behind with just two events of the season remaining. For De Angelis, it’s all a bit too late as despite moving up to sixth, his points deficit is just too large to conquer that scenario aver the available two race results for last season’s runner up.

Then with the two-hour race that was the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series, the earlier momentum established by both the Van Der Steur Racing and #46 Team TGM AMR Vantage GT4 crews halted in dramatic fashion as both became victims of another cars mistakes that saw the #46 car tapped into a spin after a safety car restart only to collect the #19 car of Scott Andrews on its way to the guard rail. Whilst both cars would get going again, necessary repairs would see them finish laps down to the leaders.

The best results came from both the #88 Archangel of Todd Coleman/Aaron Telitz as well as the #71 Rebel Rock Aston Martin of Frank DePew and Robin Liddell who claimed P6 and P7 finishes respectively in the GS class having been able to move up from towards the rear of the class after Qualifying.

With both the #46 and #19 cars having been able to rescue at least some points at the end, Matt Plumbs championship lead has now been reduced to just fifty points with Rory Van der Steur now having dropped to third, now some two hundred and fifty points in arrears with two rounds of the season remaining.

Then in the penultimate round of the VP Racing Sportscar Challenge Series, we saw three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 cars compete within the GSX class as Scott Blind hoped to maintain his upward momentum within the Champiosnhip in his #45 Ruckus Racing entry whilst Frank DePew still hoped to get his head around his new 2024 version of the Vantage with Brady Behrman coming back for some more within his #82 Van der Steur entry.

Two forty-minute races over the weekend for these guys saw Blind lead the AMR trio home in each with his P7 and P5 finishes in class (as well as another podium finish in third within the Bronze Cup battle) whilst Behrman was steady with a P9 and P7 finish apiece whilst DePew was unlucky in race two when a podium looked possible only to get spun out to end another weekend with lonely P10 and P8 finishes in class.

With just Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta still to come, Blind will have to work hard to preserve his third-place position within the GSX Drivers Champiosnhip (with the top two positions already determined) as well as to defend his three hundred and fifty points lead in the GSX Bronze Cup Championship with seven hundred points still on offer.

Photo credits – teams / series / social media