Greg Liefooghe and Sean Quinlan in the #19 Stephen Cameron Racing M4 GT4 won their class in SprintX race one at Road America, and then finished second in class in race two. Their performance left them with a slim lead in the SprintX Pro Am class going into the series’ finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in October.
The first of the series’ two 60-minute races, run on Saturday, was declared a wet race from the start. A caution flag came out because of an incident on lap one, and a red flag followed to allow competitors to switch to rain tires. The race was restarted in qualifying order. Liefooghe moved into the lead in the national Pro Am class sixteen minutes before the end of the race; BMW racers Chris Ohmacht and Toby Grahovec finished fourth in the class.
In race two, run in the rain on Sunday, Liefooghe and Quinlan finished second in class behind Matt Travis and Jason Hart in a Porsche 718 Cayman. Ohmacht and Grahovec finished third in class. Liefooghe and Quinlan lead Travis and Hart in the drivers’ title chase by four points going into Las Vegas.
In the SprintX Am class, Kris Wilson and John Allen in the #16 Auto Technic M4 GT4 finished sixth in class on Saturday and seventh on Sunday.
The SprintX East Pro Am and Am classes ran in the same races as the national classes. In race one Justin Raphael and Stevan McAleer in the #29 Classic BMW M4 GT4 finished third in the Pro Am class; there were no BMWs in the Am class. In race two Raphael and McAleer finished fourth in class. The Road America event was the season finale for the SprintX East series. Karl Wittmer, who co-drove a Mustang at Road America, won the East Pro-Am title, edging out Justin Raphael.
Two BMWs ran in the 50-minute Sprint series races. Sean Quinlan in the #19 Stephen Cameron Racing M4 GT4 finished fifth in class in race one and tenth in class in race two, and Marco Radisic in the #22 Precision Driving Tech M4 GT4 finished twelfth in class in race one and third in class in race two.
The #96 Turner Motorsport M5 GT3 ran in the SRO GT World Challenge America races at Road America.
Two M6 GT3s ran in the 90-minute Blancpain GT World Challenge America races. On Saturday Henry Schmitt and Greg Liefooghe finished tenth overall and sixth in the Pro-Am class in the #87 Stephen Cameron Racing M6 GT3, while Naoto Takeda and Takuya Shirasaka in the #96 Turner Motorsport M6 GT3 finished thirteenth overall and first in the Am class; they were the only entrants in Am. On Sunday Takeda and Shirasaka finished eleventh overall and first in Am while Schmitt and Liefooghe exited the race.—Brian Morgan
[Photos courtesy BMW Motorsport.]