| June 27, 2019 Staff Report IMSA Wire Service WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – The picturesque Finger Lakes region of Western New York plays host to a fantastic field of 37 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship this Sunday for the annual Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. In addition to it being the sixth round of the 12-race WeatherTech Championship season, it’s also Round 3 of the four-race IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, meaning it’s time for teams, drivers and manufacturers to start making their moves for the championship run. The Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen will be televised Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN, with live streaming of the race in its entirety starting at 9:30 a.m. ET Sunday on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App. IMSA Radio also will have live coverage throughout the weekend on IMSA.com and RadioLeMans.comwith complete race coverage also airing on SiriusXM Radio (Sirius Channel 218/ XM Channel 202/Streaming 972). Here’s a closer look at what to expect, whether you’re watching or listening from afar, or if you’ll be in attendance at the 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International circuit (tickets are still available at TheGlen.com): Going Streaking, Part 1No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) co-drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron come into The Glen riding a two-race win streak. They scored their first WeatherTech Championship victory two races ago in the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio and made it two-in-a-row earlier this month in the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic at Detroit’s Belle Isle Park. If they can score the hat trick this Sunday at The Glen – a track where they finished third last year – they’ll be the first set of co-drivers to win three straight WeatherTech Championship races overall since brothers Jordan and Ricky Taylor won the first five races of the 2017 season en route to that year’s Prototype championship title in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R. Cameron and Montoya are currently second in the DPi championship standings, trailing No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R co-drivers Felipe Nasr and Pipo Derani by five points, 152-147. Going Streaking, Part 2Cameron and Montoya aren’t the only ones riding a two-race win streak to the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. No. 912 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR co-drivers Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber have won each of the past two GT Le Mans (GTLM) class races, winning the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach in April and at Mid-Ohio last month. The overall Porsche GT Team comes to Watkins Glen carrying a three-race win streak, as its No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR shared by full-season drivers Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy and endurance teammate Frederic Makowiecki won March’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts. If either the No. 911 or 912 wins on Sunday, the team will match Ford Chip Ganassi Racing’s run of four-straight wins from 2018 shared between the No. 66 Ford GT and co-drivers Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller and the No. 67 Ford GT of Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe. If the No. 912 wins again, it’ll be the first three-race win streak for the same drivers and car since 2016, when Westbrook and Briscoe won at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in the No. 67 Ford GT. The back-to-back wins have propelled the No. 912 duo known as #Bamthor to the top of the WeatherTech Championship GTLM point standings by seven points, 126-119, over two-time defending GTLM champions Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette Racing C7.R. Going Streaking, Part 3Jack Hawksworth and Richard Heistand are looking to do something this weekend that has not been done before in the GT Daytona (GTD) class. The co-drivers of the No. 14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 are looking to become the first to win three consecutive GTD races. They won the inaugural WeatherTech Sprint Cup round earlier this month at Detroit after winning the WeatherTech Championship race at Mid-Ohio last month. They’re the second GTD team this year to win two straight after the No. 11 GRT Grasser Racing Team squad of Mirko Bortolotti, Rolf Ineichen and Rik Breukers won both the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona and at Sebring. But nobody has ever won three straight GTD races. Hawksworth – who took the Motul Pole Award in the GTD class here at The Glen last year – and Heistand will be joined in their pursuit of victory by Swiss racer Philipp Frommenwiler. Heistand and Hawksworth are currently third in the WeatherTech Championship GTD point standings (the Detroit race only counted toward the WeatherTech Sprint Cup) with 77 points. They’re three points behind their teammates in the No. 12 Lexus, Townsend Bell and Frankie Montecalvo, and seven behind co-leaders Trent Hindman and Mario Farnbacher in the No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3. Look for Late-Race Magic on Restarts If history is our guide, anybody watching the NBCSN telecast or the live stream on the NBC Sports App will want to hang around to the very end. The last three consecutive Six Hours of The Glen and four of the last five have been decided through late-race heroics. Last year, Stephen Simpson got a monster restart with 35 minutes to go, charging from third in the No. 99 JDC-Miller Motorsports ORECA LMP2 machine to the lead around Montoya and Jordan Taylor heading into The Glen’s famed “Inner Loop” chicane to take the lead and the win. Two years ago, Simpson was involved in another restart lead change with 24 minutes to go, this time taking the lead from Joao Barbosa in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R. But Barbosa eventually battled back, retaking the lead and the victory with 11 minutes to go. There were two separate restarts inside of the last 25 minutes of the 2016 race that bunched the field, but Barbosa managed to keep them at bay to win in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP. Heavy rains in 2015 forced that race to end under full-course caution. In the first WeatherTech Championship Six Hours of The Glen in 2014, Westbrook – then driving the No. 90 VisitFlorida Racing Corvette DP – took advantage of a restart with 11 minutes to go to wrest the lead and the victory from Alex Brundle in the No. 42 OAK Racing Nissan Morgan LMP2 machine. So, if there’s a late-race restart, buckle up, because it’ll be exciting. IMSA TWITTER, INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK Follow on Twitter @imsa, use the hashtag #IMSA, follow on Instagram @imsa_racing and ‘like’ IMSA on Facebook – www.facebook.com/imsa. For further information logon to www.imsa.com. |
