Championship double for the Heart of Racing AMR team from VIR

The first of the two ninety-minute races of the weekend started under hot and humid conditions after the earlier rain with the threat of more storms never that far away as Newell prepared to start the race from his P9 overall/P5 in class qualifying position.

A bullish but otherwise clean opening lap saw the #24 car drop one place before eventually settling into something of a rhythm where that place was soon recovered. Just before the end of the first half hour of racing, the first reports of rain first began to circulate as teams prepared wet tyres ahead of their scheduled pit stops and driver changes still nearly fifteen minutes away.

That worry soon went away but everything was thrown up into the air as one car left the track, struck and landed upon the outside tyre wall to bring out the Full Course Yellow for the first time. Still too early to pit for service straight away, many teams were mulling the thought of taking a very slow pit stop to see out both the tyres, refuelling and driver change but also to see out any possibility of exceeding maximum drive time for the second driver.

The HoRT Aston Martin took that gamble, and whilst the two cars ahead of them existing pit lane had not quite beaten the maximum 50 minutes’ drive time issue, Turner was OK and had moved up to P3 overall/P2 in class. Eventually getting back to green with just 45 minutes remaining, these were Turners first racing laps at Virginia International Raceway.

Unfortunately unable to resist the pressure of the Porsche behind, Turner was forced to let that car by as they weren’t within the same class as a possible class win still looked possible with the leading Corvette bound for the pit lane at some point but on the penultimate lap, the #29 BMW took then P2 away from them in class. As expected, however, the race leading Pro-Am classed Corvette did pit on the last lap and that allowed the #24 up another place to finally claim their best race result of the season so far – P4 overall and P2 in class.

Race two nearly ended very quickly for Turner and his P10 overall/P7 in class starting position as too much kerb on the opening lap saw the rear end of his car step out – narrowly having it chopped off by one of the many chasing pack. Survived, however, he did as he (and others) got onto terms with another green track after further rain in an earlier session.

Another FCY for another car in the tyre wall saw many racing minutes lost to that recovery again, but Turner was to go long into that pit window eventually pitting and handing over to Newell with just over forty minutes remaining whilst P8 overall/P5 in class.

This time Newell was pushing the Chouest Povoledo Corvette hard for position and an (unseen) start of an incident on track between the two cars saw Newell come off the better after apparent side to side contact between the two cars to climb up to P4 in class.

With just minutes of the race to go, the live stream going offline again blanked out the viewpoint of Newell claiming another last-minute pass for position as he and Turner finished race two of the weekend P7 overall/P3 in class.

Next stop of the championship will be from Road America in just over three weeks time.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media