Two eight-hour races from the Circuit of the Americas this weekend sees out the World Racing League Series for the year with three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s competing amongst the now traditional sell-out grid.

Having started at Nola Motorsport Park way back in February, a massive one hundred and fifty-eight hours of racing has already taken place within the series even before the capacity grid of ninety cars get to the CoTA circuit.

 

The penultimate round of the 2022 World Racing League Series takes the large, multi-class grid back to Florida this weekend for another 8 + 8-hour event around the challenging circuit of the Sebring International Raceway.

Like most of the season so far, we have seen both the Prosport Competition and Automatic Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s dip in and out of the series but for this this weekend, both the (now) #43 Prosport and #909 Automatic cars are back in action with the #43 also sporting their new livery.

Whilst many of us will be transfixed upon the events from the 90th Edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend, over at Daytona the World Racing League will be running a mini version of their own with another of their fourteen-hour race events.

With costs managed by the series to ensure sustainable efficiencies within their clientele, this event again features another multi-class grid of seventy-eight entries which, like always, sells out well before the day.

Continuing the great weekend of results for many Aston Martin Racing Partner and Customer teams around the world had two such teams earn themselves a great weekend at the latest round of the World Racing League with their older generation of Vantage GT4.

Having had an engine blow during the early sessions of the second round of the season at Barber way back in early March saw the Prosport Competition team also miss the next round at Mid-Ohio for them to be finally fit and ready to race again at last weekend’s 8 + 8 hr event from Road America.

Citing a driving crew of Pippa Mann, Mark Doran and Dwayne Moses, saw the #143 normally aspirated V8 powered car complete a pair of P6 finishes in the GTO class by the close of racing on Sunday.

They were joined by the Automatic Racing prepared Vantage GT4 from the Stoner Car Care stable for drivers Ramin Abdolvahabi, Brandon Kidd and Steven Davison who secured two podium finishes including an overall race win in Saturday’s first race.

The next event in the series will be a fourteen-hour marathon at Daytona in mid-June.

Photo credits - Teams

When it works – it works but when it doesn’t, it all seems like hard work for no reward and that was what the second round of the 2022 World Racing League Series appeared to be like for the two Aston Martin Racing runners at Barber Motorsports Park last weekend.

With the opening round of the season from NOLA not running according to plan for the Prosport Competition AMR Vantage GT4 team with both technical and accident damage hindering both opening races of the year, it was hoped that last weekend’s 9 + 7-hour races would prove better luck for their driver line up of Dwayne Moses, Nick Pearson and Mark Doran.

Unfortunately again for the team, their #143 car didn’t progress further than the forty third lap of the winners completed two hundred and seventy five lap race – quite why we don’t know but we can see that the car also didn’t make for the start of Sundays shorter seven hour race as a direct consequence. Sporting a new front quarter going into the race and appearing intact at the end of the meeting, we can only surmise that incident or accident was had at some point during the weekend.

That being said, the #909 Automatic Racing entry of Brandon Kidd, Stephen Davison and (?) David Russell did make the best of the opening race on Saturday taking a P5 start through to an overall race win at the end of the day.

Even then, the #909 car suffered the same fate as their stablemates in race 1 with an unsightly DNF being listed against them by the of Sundays race.

Next round of the series will be from Mid-Ohio in early April.

Photo credits - Teams

 

After a technically challenging season opener at the NOLA Motorsport Park two weeks ago, the Prosport Competition Aston Martin Vantage team will be out again this weekend for the second round of the World Racing League Series from the Barber Motorsport Park.

Racing last time with SRO GT4 America Aston Martin racers Aaron Povoledo and Ross Chouest together with Matt Rivard and Zack Ping, a fuel pick-up issue three hours into the opening eight-hour race blighted their class P3 position start for them to lose too much time in pit lane to be contestable by the end before contact with another car ended their day early for the second race.

 

In a not so unassuming final round of the 2021 World Racing League season at the weekend, saw two older generation Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 Grand Am spec race cars again compete in the series as it raced out their first straight twenty-four hour race around the bumps of the iconic Sebring international Raceway.

One car from the local Automatic Racing stable for their regular Michelin Pilot Challenge drivers (past and present) and one from the Prosport Competition team who swapped to the AMR chassis for this season, it was to be another weekend of success and indeed not so much for either team come the fall of the chequered flag on Sunday.

Two older generation Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4’s will take to the track of the Sebring International Raceway this weekend in what will become the World Racing League’s first continuous twenty-four race in its history.

For those of you who may not be aware of this series, the series specialises in low cost, endurance races around many of the iconic circuits that North America has to offer with next years calendar again featuring race weekends like an 8Hr + 8Hr, 9hr + 7Hr or a 14hour long races at places like Sebring, CoTA, VIR, Daytona, Mid-Ohio and Road America to name just a few.

Two Aston Martin teams have been dipping in and out of this year’s calendar so far this year and both return to see the season out with the biggest race yet.

We have already heard of the Prosport Competition team turning up this weekend with their #143 GTO classed AMR Vantage GT4 GA spec car with drivers including Pippa Mann, Zach Arnold, Jim Cox and Dwayne Moses.

Also confirmed in joining in the multi-class entry of over fifty cars is the #909 Automatic Racing AMR Vantage GT4 entry for the ‘regular bunch’ of Rob Ecklin, Ramin Abdolvahabi, Brandon Kidd, Steven Davison and maybe even Automatic Racing’s boss David Russell.

Friday sees the teams have up to four hours of testing ahead of the start of the 24hr at noon on Saturday. There is usually a live stream available via the series social media channels, but these are sometimes limited to just circuit cameras.

What a great way to see out the season!

Photo credits – Prosport / Automatic / Drivers / WRL

 

British born former IndyCar racer Pippa Mann will be driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 next weekend as she joins the Prosport Competition team at the World Racing League’s 24 hour visit to Sebring.

Following her racing career within the IndyCar series, the lady racer with the pink helmet has been turning much of her time to driver coaching and, where she can, a new career within the GT class both in Europe and in the USA.