ALTON, Va. – Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe, salvaging a tough start to the week, took the checkered flag first during Sunday’s GT America powered by AWS event at Virginia Int’l Raceway.
His flag-to-flag winning feat aboard the No. 70 McLaren 720S-GT3 was duplicated by both Masters class winner Charlie Luck and GT4 class winner Sean Quinlan. In the Invitational class, Dominic Starkweather captured top honors in the No. 112 EMG Motorsports Saleen 1 Cup machine.
In the course of his podium finish in Saturday’s race one, Iribe’s fastest race lap earned him the pole for Sunday’s second race. A start put Iribe ahead of the field, allowing him to extend his lead each lap. This performance completed Iribe’s turnaround of the weekend that started with mechanical issues and ended with two fastest race lap awards, a second-place finish, and finally the top step of the podium in race two.
Luck’s class win and second-place SRO3 finish keeps him at the top of that class and in serious contention for the overall SRO3 Championship. He was challenged for the first half of the race by various competitors, but Luck managed to both maintain his line and avoid the traffic pitfalls that eliminated some of his possible contenders from being any real threat.
Jeff Burton’s third-place SRO3 finish and second-place Masters podium-class hardware was another welcome close to an otherwise rough weekend for the Rearden team who were unable to salvage their other Lamborghini for competition and entered the replacement for Burton in GT America instead.
In GT4, Quinlan’s flag-to-flag feat did not go as unchallenged, as the Stephen Cameron Racing driver defended against the charging Alex Welch. Welch’s attacks for position began after the halfway point of the race and heated up all the way to the last-lap drag race to the finish. Quinlan’s defense held and Welch would take home the second-in-class hardware for his efforts.
Chris Cagnazzi started for the start of the race and jumped into second at the start of the race where he chased down Quinlan for a few laps, but ultimately succumbed to Welch’s charge by lap 15. Cagnazzi held on for the balance of the race and finished third.