| August 24, 2020 By David Phillips IMSA Wire Service |
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Whatever truth there is to the adage “quality over quantity” was on display in the Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway.
With the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Daytona Prototype international (DPi) and LMP2 teams on leave, the spotlight shone on the GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GT Daytona (GTD) classes. They did not disappoint. BMW, Corvette and Porsche all had their moments in the GTLM sun, while the makeup of the GTD podium was anybody’s guess throughout two hours and 40 minutes of compelling racing.
61 & Counting That said, the weekend produced one particularly noteworthy “quantitative” milestone: Bill Auberlen’s GTD win in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 was his 61st win in North America’s top flight sports car racing series (GRAND-AM, IMSA GT, ALMS, USRRC and WeatherTech Championship). Auberlen thus moved past Scott Pruett (GRAND-AM, IMSA GT, ALMS and WeatherTech Championship) in that particular numbers game.
Never one to rest on his laurels, Auberlen (with a second assist from co-driver Robby Foley in as many days) co-drove the Turner BMW M4 GT4 to victory in Sunday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race, his 17th win in that series. Although he has raced Porsches, Mazdas, Ferraris, McLarens, Aston Martins and Panoz, from IMSA GTU to GTLM, LMP and Daytona Prototypes, Auberlen is indelibly linked with BMW. Small wonder, given that with well over 350 starts to his credit, the Californian has competed in more races for BMW than any other driver. And at the tender age of 51, Auberlen not only shows no signs of slowing down but gives every indication he will add to his career win total – substantially – in the coming seasons.
Streak Snapped BMW’s GTD victory snapped Lexus’ three race winning streak. Indeed, following convincing wins at Daytona, Sebring and Road America, the best the AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus could manage at VIR was a fifth-place finish on the road (later to become fourth) by Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz. Although the winning BMW won in relative comfort (Auberlen crossed the line with 7.5 seconds in hand), given the ferocious battle for second waged between the Meyer Shank Acura NSX GT3 piloted with vigor by Mario Farnbacher, Bryan Sellers’ Lamborghini and the Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Lawson Aschenbach, it was not out of the realm of possibility the Lexus could have finished as high as second.
Fortunately, Messrs. Farnbacher, Sellers and Aschenbach were as clean as they were fierce and managed to keep their cars on the road to the end. Unfortunately, Sellers and co-driver Madison Snow were subsequently relegated to the back of the finishing order for a fuel capacity issue on the No. 48 Paul Miller Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
Down to the Wire GTLM also went down to the wire, with Antonia Garcia and Jordan Taylor scoring a third straight win for Corvette in their C8.R . . . but not before Garcia had a bit of a fright in the closing laps when the diffuser worked loose, flapping away and triggering showers of sparks on the bumpier sections of the circuit.
However, Garcia had enough of a buffer to earn the win over Bruno Spengler in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL M8 GTE. That minor drama aside, as with the GTD class, the real action in the final laps featured the battle for runner-up as Spengler resisted the advances of Nick Tandy’s No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR-19. Although Tandy drew level with the BMW with a couple of laps remaining, Spengler rebuffed the Porsche’s advances then artfully navigated some timely GTD traffic to secure the runner-up spot.
Yes, there may have only been half a dozen GTLM cars at VIR, but the competition seldom lacked for excitement demonstrating, again, the value of quality over quantity.
