ALTON, VA – The ALMS series made its debut at the Virginia
International Raceway this past weekend.
It turned out to be a great race venue, and the Corvette Racing team of
Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner clinched the GT-class championship. GM also won the manufacturer’s title and Corvette
Racing won the team title. What makes
this more spectacular is that the season finale at Road Atlanta is still weeks
away. It’s going to be difficult to say
this without sounding big-headed or pleased with myself,” quipped Gavin, “but,
hey, who cares: I WON THE 2012 AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES GT DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP!”
Though the Corvette appeared dominant, the four-hour race
was far from a slam-dunk. Not only are
the GT-class Corvettes so evenly matched
against the Porsches, Ferraris and BMWs, the windy VIR track was new for all
the competitors. Entering the race with
a 28-point lead, luck appeared to be with Gavin/Milner as they narrowly escaped
a first lap incident when the #20 Dyson Racing Lola-Mazda spun in turn one. “I was hoping things would go well for us,
with this being my 100th start,” Gavin said. “When I managed to get through the melee in
Turn 1, I thought this could very well be our day. Things worked out for us today, but we've
worked at it. We made our own luck. We clambered and put ourselves in the right
position. We executed that four times
this year, and that’s why we won the championship.” The victory was especially sweet as this was
Oliver Gavin’s 100th ALMS start and VIR is Milner’s home track. Second place went to the Porsche GT3 team of
Bergmeister and Long with the final podium position going to the 458 Italia of
Overbeek and Sharp.
The Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03a Honda of Graf/Luhr won the
overall and P1-class completing 135 laps.
The P2–class win and 3rd place overall fell to the HPD
ARX-03b Honda of Tucker/Bouchet. The P1
and P2 class championships will be decided at Road Atlanta in October. The Chevrolet-powered Oreca FLM09 of Bennett/Braun
won the PC-class and GTC-class was won by the Porsche GT3 Cup car of
MacNeill/Keen.
.jpg)
Also, last weekend at the NHRA US Nationals, Burns customer
Charlie Westcott again won the Hemi Shootout with a 8.397 sec, 159.06mph pass
with the 1968 “warfish” Barracuda, against the Barton-powered ’68 Dodge Dart of
Jim Daniels (8.485sec/156.92mph). Charlie
took his second straight sweep at the Indianapolis Mopar Hemi Challenge (and
fifth Hemi Challenge win overall), pocketing the $15,000 winner’s purse from
Mopar. Read more: http://blogs.moparmusclemagazine.com/6786763/mopar-news/mopar-hemi-challenge-nhra-us-nationals/#ixzz26l2a6qJ1
No comments:
Post a Comment