The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb event has finally kicked off in earnest at its namesake location in Colorado, USA where there will be one new Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 Evo strangely within the midst of the GT4 Trophy by Yokohama class.

Driven by Steve Wetterau and supported by the BBI Autosport team, aside from a few ‘club’ events at the California based Thermal Club, this will be the first competitive outing for the Pikes Peak Rookie Wetterau.

In previous years we have seen Aston Martin Racing powered entries within the annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb event come and go – or not materialise as has been the preceding form, but this year we actually have one confirmed entry.

Racing a new AMR Vantage GT4 Evo will be Steve Wetterau and his #85 Pikes Peak GT4 Trophy by Yokohama entry from the California based BBI Autosport team.

Seventy-four multi-classed entries are listed against this year’s 103rd running of the event which will take place later this month up the infamous twelve-mile mountain road.

Looking at the team’s social media, they have been practising with their new car at the Thermal Club in California for a few weeks now – what will happen with that driver/car/team relationship after the event, however, is yet to be seen.

Photo credits – social media

 

It was an early start to their 2021 season’s for two Aston Martin Racing customer teams over in the USA at the weekend with one kicking their first pre-season testing and development at Daytona and the other having their first racing experience aboard their brand new car over at the Thermal Club.

Busy at the final round of the 2020 International GT series in Florida as part of their pre-season testing regime was the Notlad Racing AMR Vantage GT4 of Matt Dalton and Pat Gallagher.

Utah based Rearden Racing will be looking to maintain their winning record as the SRO GT4 America Series sees out their Winter Invitational at The Thermal Club in California again this weekend.

Having entered their first brand new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 at the opening round of this three round amateur driver only series just prior to Christmas, their 2019 GT4 Sprint X West Am Championship winning driver Jeff Burton opened his AMR driving account with two wins out of two in his black and red #91 car.


That event was followed up with then two new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's being entered for the second round in mid January where Burton was joined by Dimitri Novikov in his own white and green #29 AMR Vantage GT4 and over the course of that weekend, Burton and Novikov won a race a piece.

This weekends final round of the Winter invitational is the final chance for these amateur drivers to settle in with the teams and cars ahead of the opening round of the GT4 America Series itself in just under four weeks time from the Circuit of the Americas at Austin, Texas.


It has also come to light since the last round of the series, the team (or at least a driver within the team) has secured the purchase of another AMR Vantage GT4 from AMR North America's strategic partner CSJ Motorsport and that takes their GT4 sales tally over the winter months to four cars in the SRO GT4 America Series alone.

We have been told that we may have to be patient to see if this new owner turns up to race at this final meeting before the full season gets down to business later next month.

###UPDATE

We have since had it confirmed that Rearden Racing's driver Paul Terry will now also be at this final Winter Invitational event with his new AMR Vantage GT4

Photo credits - GT4 America

Rearden Racing maintained their 100% track record at last weekend's second round of the SRO GT4 America Winter Invitational from The Thermal Club in California.

The difference this time around was that the team fielded a second brand new and CSJ Motorsport supplied Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 for yet another client of the team's to go with return of Jeff Burton's AMR GT4 that he debuted with a brace of race wins at the first round of the Winter Series back in mid December.


This Winter Invitational is, like its title suggests an off-season opportunity for the non-professional driver to compete against the same ability/grade opponents around the exclusive circuit of The Thermal Club in SRO homologated GT3, GT4 and GT2 classes as well as entries from the TC and TCR categories.

The opening round of the Series saw long term Rearden Racing customer Jeff Burton secure comfortable race wins in each of the weekends 40 minute sprint races but this weekend he had to share those accolades with fellow team driver Dimitri Novikov as the Russian split his race weekend between his brand new AMR GT4 and his brand new Audi R8 GT2.


Novikov won race 1 by a margin of over 11 seconds, a race within which Burton took himself out of contention with a mistake on track before the American came back to secure the GT4 class win by a massive 56 seconds in race 2 on Sunday whilst Novikov his first class win aboard his new GT2.

The final round of the series trilogy will be held at the circuit in three weeks time ahead of the formal start of the SRO GT4 America Series from the Circuit of the Americas in early March.


Happy Birthday Susan at CSJ !

Photo credits - Rearden Racing / GT4 America