Robin Liddell’s late charge to second across the finish line wound up netting the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race win Sunday at Road America.
Liddell and co-driver Frank DePew pushed the No. 71 Rebel Rock Racing Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R from the 17th starting position in the Grand Sport (GS) class to cross the finish line 3.229s behind the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 at the checkered flag of the Road America 120. But following post-race technical inspection, the Mercedes was found to have exceeded its fuel capacity and moved to the rear of the class in the provisional results.
The resulting win is the first of the season for Liddell and DePew and comes on the heels of a second-place finish last month at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. The revised results put a pair of Ford Mustang GT4s on the GS podium, with the No. 59 KohR Motorsports Mustang shared by Bob Michaelian and Luca Mars taking second place and the No. 13 McCumbee McAleer Racing with AEROSPORT Mustang co-driven by Jenson Altzman and Chad McCumbee placing third.
The race became one of differing fuel strategies and mileage, with a potential BMW podium sweep going awry when the Nos. 95 and 96 Turner Motorsport and No. 92 Random Vandals Racing entries all forced to pit for a splash of fuel with eight minutes to go in the two-hour race.
That promoted Daniel Morad in the No. 57 Winward Mercedes to the front, which he held to the checkered flag – only to have the result negated by the post-race penalty. The win is the 15th of Liddell’s Michelin Pilot Challenge career and the sixth for DePew.
The GS points-leading No. 72 Murillo Mercedes also needed to pit and ended in 11th place.
Geoffrey M. Miller/Lumen
No. 5 Alfa Romeo triples up at Road America in TCR
The story of the Touring Car (TCR) weekend battle at Road America can be told in two halves. Hyundai dominated qualifying with four of the top five spots. Yet manufacturer parity emerged in the race, with the sole Alfa Romeo and the sole new Audi finishing ahead of the seven-car armada of Hyundai Elantra Ns.
An epic scrap occurred between Tim Lewis Jr. in the No. 5 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR and Mikey Taylor in the No. 17 Unitronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports Audi RS3 LMS TCR in the waning stages of the race.
Taylor’s co-driver Chris Miller rocketed to the lead early but fell back to fourth on the pit stop, behind three Hyundais: the No. 91 van der Steur Racing car and the Nos. 98 and 33 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian cars.
However, with 34 minutes to go, Taylor put together a sequence of moves on par with his charge at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – where he and Miller secured their first win of the season. Taylor darted around the outside of Tyler Maxson, in the No. 91 van der Steur Hyundai, for the lead at Turn 1.
But Lewis, who’d taken over for Roy Block, was keen to extend the KMW Alfa Romeo win streak at Road America to three. With a methodical charge and an eventual pass for the win, the No. 5 car was back on top of the box.
Lewis and Taylor praised each other in a clean battle.
“The pass was a few laps in the making, trying to figure out where we were good and where he was good,” Lewis said. “I felt like the fuel number on the dash kept getting closer to zero.”
Taylor added, “It was a super-good battle. They’re good friends and it’s great they’re up there as well. We would have been there, but had to save on fuel. The pace they were running was super good, and hard to maintain.”
Fuel saving became a story in TCR as several cars ran out of fuel. The pole-sitting No. 33 Hyundai of Harry Gottsacker and Robert Wickens was best of the bunch in third, while their championship-contending teammates Mark Wilkins and Mason Filippi in the No. 98 Hyundai were not so lucky with an apparent stop on the backstraight.
The Michelin Pilot Challenge season resumes on Saturday, Aug. 26, with the Virginia is for Racing Lovers Grand Prix at VIRginia International Raceway.
