AUSTIN, Texas – Porsche has claimed a sweep of the Pirelli GT4 America weekend at Circuit of The Americas, with Nolasport and Park Place Motorsports collecting wins in the pair of SprintX races.
The two-race excursion was highlighted by a dramatic, near-photo finish in the second race.
Matt Travis and Jason Hart drove their No. 47 Nolasport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport to a dominant victory in Saturday’s race, converting a pole-winning run into the first-ever win for Porsche’s new-for-2019 GT4 challenger in global sports car competition.
The duo nearly pulled off victory in race two, with Travis coming up just 0.155 seconds short of the win after an impressive recovery drive in the closing stages of Sunday’s 60-minute race.
Trent Hindman teamed with Alan Brynjolfsson for the win in their No. 77 VOLT Lighting Porsche on Sunday, giving Park Place Motorsports its first victory in the team’s GT4 America debut weekend.
“I definitely didn’t want to start in P4,” noted Hindman. “I thought we had a better car than that in qualifying but I knew I had to be relatively aggressive at the start. I saw an opening on the outside, was able to brake quite a bit later and passed two cars on the outside of Turn 1 and later on in the lap get the lead.
“As I was still dialing in the brake bias and ABS for the conditions I got passed on the second lap but once it went back green, I knew the most important thing was to get the lead and try to pull as much of a gap as possible,” he added. “We hit our pit stop absolutely perfect and it was up to Alan to maintain what we had and bring it home for the win.”
A storming opening stint in damp conditions on Sunday saw Hindman move from fourth to the lead on the opening lap. However, he was overtaken by pole-sitter Hart on lap two, prior to the race’s one-and-only full course caution for an accident from the No. 91 Rearden Racing Audi R8 LMS GT4 of Jeff Burton.
Hindman retook the lead on lap eight following the restart, but a quicker pit stop by the Nolasport crew saw Travis rejoin as the leader with 25 minutes to go after the driver changes.
Travis, however, was handed a drive-through penalty for his car’s stop being 0.7 of a second faster than the 81-second minimum pit stop delta for Pirelli GT4 America competitors this weekend, giving the lead back to the Park Place Porsche of Brynjolfsson.
“Before I even started, I was pretty confident Trent was going to hand the car to me in first place with 25 minutes to go. Sure enough, the wonder boy did it!” Brynjolfsson said. “I had some big shoes to fill but I just did my best.”
Despite coming under pressure from the No. 21 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche of Michael Dinan, as well as Matt Fassnacht’s No. 34 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4, Brynjolfsson’s biggest challenge came from Travis, who charged from fourth to second on the final lap in dramatic fashion.
The near-photo finish resulted in another Porsche one-two result, with Fassnacht and co-driver Christian Szymczak finishing third overall and winning the GT4 East Am division.
“We really needed a start like this for the year,” said Fassnacht. “We’ve had a lot of bad luck and a lot of bad execution in terms of pit mistakes by the drivers, so we needed a result like this. Yesterday, we had a bad result because we got hit. We got squeezed. We talked last night and we were very positive, Christian and I, and we decided, ‘look, we’re just going to go have fun and get it done.’
“I got in that zone and the Mercedes-AMG GT4 was fantastic. It wasn’t as good as the Porsches, but for this track, it was as good as it could be.”
The overall-winning Park Place Porsche also picked up top class honors in GT4 East Pro-Am, while Nolasport’s Travis and Hart won GT4 SprintX Pro-Am for the second consecutive race.
ST Racing’s Jon Miller and Harry Gottsacker claimed victory in GT4 West Pro-Am with a fourth place overall finish in their No. 28 BMW M4 GT4, with Flying Lizard’s Dinan fading to fifth on the final lap but still enough for second in the GT4 Sprint Pro-Am class.
The Racer’s Group celebrated victory in GT4 West Am with an eighth place overall finish for Chris Bellomo and Kevin Woods in their No. 67 Porsche, while the No. 36 Andretti Autosport McLaren 570S GT4 of Jarett Andretti and Karl Thomson picked up GT4 SprintX Am honors in race two.
It came after a technical infraction in race one for Andretti and Thomson that saw the pairing lose their class win and fourth place overall finish on Saturday.