| ALTON, Va. – IMSA officials added the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Race 2 makeup event to the VIRginia International Raceway schedule to create a tripleheader for the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge. After the third race of the weekend, all three class leaders leave VIR on the doorstep of wrapping up their respective class championships with one full race weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta remaining in the 2025 season. Valentino Catalano (No. 30 Gebhardt Intralogistics Motorsports Duqueine D08), Adam Adelson (No. 24 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R) and Kiko Porto (No. 8 RAFA Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2) punctuated their potential title-winning seasons with strong results in Sunday morning’s 45-minute race at VIR. So long as Catalano, Adelson and Porto start Race 1 at Michelin Raceway, they’ll all unofficially wrap their titles. Catalano and Jake Walker (No. 6 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) completed three-race sweeps of the VIR weekend, while Porto won his second race of the weekend. Catalano led closest championship rival Brian Thienes (No. 77 Forte Racing Ligier JS P320) in Sunday’s race by 29.269 seconds to score his seventh Le Mans Prototype 3 (P3) victory of the season after leading the race flag-to-flag from pole. As he leaves VIR, Catalano’s lead over Thienes is unofficially 370 points after he began the weekend ahead by 240 points. “My first time winning three races in the same weekend!” Catalano laughed. “Perfect weekend, I would say. Clean sweep, really happy about the results, especially with the title fight and now just with the last race in Atlanta coming up, I’m really happy about that. The team did a perfect job, so I’m really grateful for everything.” |
| In Grand Touring Daytona X (GTDX), Adelson had only a 20-point lead over AJ Muss entering the weekend. Alas with Muss’ absence and with Jake Walker making up 90 points across the three races, Adelson departs VIR with a much wider unofficial 210-point lead over Walker. Adelson finished second in all three races this weekend behind Walker, who did everything he could to try to overcome a 300-point deficit heading into the weekend. Today’s battle between the two included several intense moments. Adelson passed Walker for the lead on the opening lap, Walker passed him back into the esses on Lap 6, Adelson passed him back once more when Walker went off course at Turn 12 on Lap 11, and finally Walker got Adelson back into Turn 13 two laps later. Walker won by 7.258 seconds over Adelson. “Adam and I had a great battle,” Walker reflected. “I got him a little bit out of sequence in Turns 3, 4 and 5. I was able to get him going up the esses and I created a bit of a gap. Then I made a mistake in Oak Tree and just pushing a little bit too hard. I worked hard and I got the position back. The car was great, even with having to work the tire a little bit harder to get around Adam and to defend.” Adelson added of the battle, “I think Jake and I are very neck-and-neck competitors. It was really great battling with him. He’s a great driver and it’s fun racing wheel-to-wheel with someone like that. And yeah, again, I’m proud of our Wright Motorsports team performance and we showed everything we could out there.” |
| Grand Sport X (GSX) saw Porto come into VIR up 340 points over Steven Clemons in the No. 76 BSI Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2. He leaves it with an unofficial 440-point lead over Clemons, with Porter a further 40 points behind. Porto enjoyed a trouble-free ride to the victory on Sunday, winning by 31.123 seconds over Porter. “Man, it was good,” Porto said. “Today, we finally went a step ahead that I wanted in terms of balance on the car. Even though we got the win yesterday, I was not completely happy with what we had in terms of pace. And today, finally, I think we made the right adjustments in the right direction. It’s good to learn also a little bit more and this weekend was a good teaching moment.” Also of note, Matthew Dicken (No. 36 RAFA Racing Ligier JS P320) and Justin Di Benedetto (No. 4 Di Benedetto Racing Porsche 718 GT4 RS CS) scored their best finishes of the season with third place in their respective classes in P3 and GSX. The season concludes at Michelin Raceway with a doubleheader on Thursday, Oct. 9 and Friday, Oct. 10. |
