In spirit, winning both Saturday’s eight hour and Sunday’s seven-hour races, the pairing had to settle for just a win on Sunday after their Vantage GT4 was found to have exceeded its maximum dyno output during the weekends opening race, so were sadly struck from the results despite the marginal boost in performance that transgression made.

Not letting a cold and wet start to the Alabama proceedings hamper their efforts, the sister #172 TLM Racing entered Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 of Jim Hamman, David Tuaty and Nathan Byrd finished race 1 in P9 overall whilst the #909 Automatic Racing AMR of Todd Parriott and Tom Dwyer would hit a few obstacles along the way to finish P35 overall and fifty-one laps down.

Sunday’s race two saw the #888 ‘Mona’ AMR take the GTO class win with the #172 a consistent finisher in P10 and with a better finish (and more importantly – more seat time for the GT4 America entered pairing) in P27.

The series now moves onto Mid-Ohio in just about a month’s time.

Photo credits - Team

TLM racing have confirmed that drivers Jim Hamman, Nathan Bird and team boss David Tuaty will be running within the distinctly liveried #172 whilst the young Zang O’Shaunessy will be running the #888 ‘Mona’ alongside that of JP Southern. We are still waiting to hear of confirmation of names within the #909 Automatic entry but expect at least part of their IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series contenders amongst them.

Testing and eventually Qualifying will already be underway today before tomorrow sees the opening eight-hour race before Sundays concluded seven-hour affair – it sounds easy, but all will testify that Sunday’s efforts quickly become hard work and a decent test of endurance for the cars, teams and drivers.

The older generation AMR Vantage GT4 from the Automatic Racing team will again see Steven Davison, Ramin Abdolvahabi and Rob Ecklin get behind the wheel of their #909 car, but they will be up against two of the newer generation Vantage GT4 cars from the TLM Racing team.

Their red liveried #172 car will be driven by Jim Hamman, Stephen Hamman alongside Tom Herb whilst the yellow #453 Ruckus Racing Aston will be driven again by Evan Stamer, Jaiden Beckman and Spike Kohlbecker.

The variant of car and driver identity of the #43 Prosport Competition Aston Martin remains to be confirmed.

UPDATE - the above photo does not answer the original question as their #43 will continue to be their usual normally aspirated 2016’ish AMR Vantage GT4 GA Spec car of old - but with another new livery!

Photo credits - Teams

All very distinguishable from their very vibrant livery designs saw the white/red/blue #888 car host father and son driver pairing and Brian and Zang O’Shaughnessy partner alongside team owner David Tuaty and former IndyCar driver Pippa Mann with Jim Hamman, Thomas Herb, Jody Miller and we believe JP Southern (DTM Trophy racer) aboard the red #172 car.

The dazzling bright #453 Ruckus Racing Aston Martin had Scott Blind, Evan Stamer and a young GT4 debutant in Jaiden Beckman behind the wheel.

Despite the best attempts from Mother Nature to disrupt the meeting on Friday with both torrential wind and rain as well as forecasted tornado’s, both the Saturday and Sunday race days turned out nice for the grid.

Although consistency was the name of the game for both the #453 and #172 cars scoring a decent class finish of P7/P9 and P9/P8 between them respectively, it was the #888 car who ended up running something of a hero to zero outcome by the end of this meetings nine- and seven-hour races.

Finishing third in race one, the #888 car would crash out early into race two after contact from another car following am earlier full course caution for a stationary vehicle. Luckily neither driver was injured, but armco damage to the #888 put them out of the race even before the race had made a double-digit lap count.

Photo credits – Team / social media

With the #909 Automatic Racing Aston Martin from the Stoner Car Care crew again missing from the entry and the #43 Prosport Competition entry also facing last minute driver crew issues with the unexpected loss of two drivers two weeks before the event, it may be that the three new TLM Racing AMR entries will be left to fly the flag alone on their series debut.

Not that many of these AMR crews are new to the TLM team or to the series of course as all have made the switched to the Vantage GT4 having seen its success in other American Series and with their own WRL Series slowing expanding out into newer GT4 based race machinery than before. 

This weekend’s twenty-three strong GTO class entry list details similarly new GT4 platforms from both Porsche and BMW so the moves from the TLM Racing team is simply them keeping up with the Jones’.

Driver crews for the three TLM Racing team have been confirmed to us by the team as being father and son duo Brian and Zang O’Shaughnessy with Pippa Mann and team boss David Tuaty aboard the red/white/blue #888 car with the #172 car being driven by Jim Hamman, Thomas Herb and Jody Miller with Scott Blind, Evan Stamer and a young Jaiden Beckman completing the line-up aboard the colourfully liveried Ruckus Racing #453 car.

Photo credits – Team / social media / FARA USA