Formally six Aston Martin’s but now apparently just five such cars compete in this weekend’s eighth round of the season (excluded the cancelled round from Daytona in June) where the likes of the 89X Motorsport team, TLM Racing and Automatic Racing will enter their own assortment of Vantage GT4/GT8R cars for their customer drivers.

As we have said before, the series is extremely efficient at giving us both a cohesive entry list and session/race results over the course of the season but the one thing (the many things we lack in fact) is of course a full driver roster.

What we do have however, is confirmation that the #89 89X Motorsport / #172 TLM Racing / #289 89X Motorsport / #888 TLM Racing and #909 Automatic Racing AMR Vantage GT4’s have been entered.

This event will also be the first for the Automatic crew since the untimely passing of Ramin Abdolvahabi just a couple of weeks ago so any GTO class win for those guys – well that would be a fitting tribute to their lost friend.

Photo credits – Teams / series / social media

Two crews from the David Tuaty lead TLM Racing outfit saw the bright red #172 entry of Jim Hamman, JP Southern and Tom Herb take to the infamous bumps of the former wartime airfield circuit alongside the #888 ‘Mona’ with the young Zang O’Shaunessy behind the wheel of his father’s car, supported again by the more experienced racers in Pippa Mann and Troy Ermish.

The locally based Automatic Racing team were also in attendance with their older iteration #909 AMR Vantage GT4 that Ramin Abdolvahabi would have shared with Jim Cox for the weekend had it not been for repeated electrical/fuel pump issues that side lined the car for much of the weekend.

They in turn was joined by another new to AMR team in 89X Motorsport who had acquired both a Vantage GT8R and Vantage GT4 from New Zealand ahead of their racing debut in them lats weekend. More akin to American muscle cars, this would be a racing test for their driving duo of Mike Fitzpatrick and Sebastian Vassen.

In Saturdays opener, the #888 started the highest in P7 where they were able to come home P5 overall (P4 in class) despite the loss of their air conditioning whilst the debuting 89X #89 car home just two places behind in their first ever AMR powered race to finish P7 overall and P6 in class with the #172 finishing immediately behind them to make it a rather successful race 1 outing.

Sundays second eight-hour race was much the same, but the #172 car did start from pole position, but race issues and fatigue did creep in which did affect their respective results.

The #888 car again finished P4 in class (this time still on the lead lap as opposed to be being one lap down to the winners on Saturday whilst the #172 eventually finished P8 in class with the #89 crew P15.

The season moves onto the Circuit of the Americas where their 2023 season will conclude at the start of December with another 8 + 8 Hr event – sadly alongside the final race for the Aston Martin Racing supporting CSJ Motorsport crew of Cy and Susan Jary (amongst others) who have grown the American marketplace to the scale that we have seen this season and whose presence within the paddock will be sorely missed. 

Those were the words from one team manager this weekend, not ours!!

Photo credits – Teams / social media / Tom Beer Photo

Again, competing their the older normally aspirated version of the Vantage GT4 sees the Automatic Racing team this time enter two cars with another from the Prosport Competition team. Neither team have been full season entrants – either by design or misfortune so this weekend’s events will simply be for personal and collective pride.

Each of the three Aston’s will compete again within the Series GTO class with the #43 Prosport car running with the crew of Mark Doran, Dwayne Moses, Sam Owen and Sean Gibbons.

Usually only running one car in the series to support their IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series endeavours sees the Florida based team enter two cars – one for their IMSA runners of Rob Ecklin an Ramin Abdolvahabi and another for Steven Davison and Brandon Kidd with team boss David Russell filling in if required (apparently).

At least four hours of track time is available to the teams on Friday before the final two eight hours races are ran over both Saturday and Sunday.

Photo credits - Teams

Assessing the damage, he and the team determined that the car was not badly damaged, so Abdolvahabi continued. The first caution came only 20 minutes into the race, and the team made a strategy call to save time, calling Abdolvahabi into pit lane for left-side Michelin tires and fuel.

"On that first lap, one car shut the door on me and we made contact, which sent me into another car," said Abdolvahabi. "Then he hit me from behind. I'm just glad I was able to keep it on the road and keep it going, we're lucky we didn't get spun around. But that's the sort of thing that happens in such close racing! The car just wasn't the same after that - the steering was fine, but the toe seemed a bit off. We just didn't have the pace."

The race went green, yellow, green, yellow in rapid succession over the next hour, but Abdolvahabi made smart moves and took advantage of a round of late pit stops to move up to P14. He held steady throughout the final minutes of his stint, handing off to Ecklin with just over two hours remaining.

But shortly thereafter, it was Ecklin’s turn to get tagged from behind in what was rapidly becoming a game of bumper cars. He fought the ill-handling car but still laid down steady laps, climbing from P22 up to P16 with 40 minutes remaining. When the checkered flag flew, Ecklin was second in the Bronze Cup standings and P14 overall.

"Staying out of trouble was key today - those were some hard hits out there today,” said Ecklin. “I couldn't feel anything technically wrong with the car, but it was just off pace. I couldn't gain time anywhere. So it was a matter of managing fuel and keeping the car on track. This is a very physical track to race on for four hours, so while we're disappointed not to get the Bronze Cup win, we're happy to have brought the car home."

"Rob and I really wanted P1 in Bronze Cup," said Abdolvahabi. "The strategy was spot-on, but all those hits just took us out of contention."“Finishing on the lead lap after four hours, with a wounded car from lap one on, with some good strategy along the way, I’m pretty happy with that,” said Automatic Racing team manager David Russell. “Driver changes were good, crew work was excellent, and we survived it with a whole car – and in this race, that’s a positive outcome.” 

The Stoner Car Care team continues to support End Alzheimer’s Racing, carrying decals on the car to help their efforts to raise funds and awareness.

Next up for the Stoner Car Care team will be the Virginia is for Racing Lovers Grand Prix from VIRginia International Raceway.

Source material - Stoner Car Care