Stevenson Camaro Faces Stiff Challenge From Rum Bum Porsche In Continental Tire Challenge GS Championship Battle
September 15, 2015 Leave a comment
Stevenson Camaro Faces Stiff Challenge From Rum Bum Porsche
In Continental Tire Challenge GS Championship Battle
CJ Wilson Racing Mazda Looks To Regain ST Lead In Hometown Event
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Sept. 15, 2015) – With its once-comfortable lead in the Grand Sport (GS) class reduced to 10 points, Stevenson Motorsports heads to Austin’s Circuit of The Americas looking to regain momentum in Friday’s Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race.
With only two races remaining, Stevenson drivers Andrew Davis and Robin Liddell lead brothers Matt and Hugh Plumb, 251-241. Davis and Liddell, who co-drive the No. 6 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.R, have finished in the top five in all eight races this season, including three consecutive victories earlier in the campaign.
“We’re just going to have to keep fighting,” Davis said. “We’re looking to be fighting for this championship all the way to the end.”
However, momentum now favors the No. 13 Billfish Foundation/Rum Bum Film & HD Studios/RumBumGear.com Porsche 911. Winners of the season opener at Daytona, the Plumbs are riding a streak of back-to-back victories at Road America and VIRginia International Raceway.
Third in the standings with 214 points is the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.R of three-time TOTAL Pole Award winner Matt Bell and Lawson Aschenbach.
Trent Hindman is the defending winner of the event, and will be joined by Ashley Freiberg in the No. 46 HIG Rewards Club/Trim-Tex/Fall-Line BMW M3.
Multimatic Motorsport has recovered from an incident in practice at VIR that forced it to field a backup Ford Mustang Boss 302R. The team has both of its new Ford Shelby GT350R-Cs ready for Texas, the No. 15 for Lime Rock Park winners Scott Maxwell and Billy Johnson, and the No. 158 for Canadian Tire Motorsport Park winners Austin Cindric and Jade Buford.
Doran Racing and Automatic Racing each will have two cars, coming off a wild finish at VIR that saw both teams run out of fuel while leading during the final two laps. Doran has the No. 14 Nismo GT Academy Nissan 370Z of BJ Zacharias and Brad Jaeger, plus the No. 41 Nismo GT Academy Nissan 370Z of Nick McMillen and Nicolas Hammann.
Automatic Racing fields a pair of Aston Martins, the No. 99 Invisible Glass/Rogue Engineering/ Red Glare Records Vantage of Brett Sandberg and Rob Ecklin, and the No. 09 Invisible Glass/Rogue Engineering/BMW Melbourne Vantage of Charles Espenlaub and Charlie Putman.
Mantella Autosport returns to two cars for the event, with the No. 8 Gulf Lubricants/Spyder Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.R joining the No. 80 MBRP/Praxir/The Sport Lab Camaro of Martin Barkey and Kyle Marcelli.
Austin-Based CJ Wilson Racing Looks To Regain ST Lead
CJ Wilson Racing, with headquarters in Austin, will be looking to regain the championship lead in the topsy-turvy Street Tuner (ST) class in its home race. Chad McCumbee and Stevan McAleer have two victories in the No. 5 ModSpace Mazda MX-5, and gave the team its first victory at Circuit of The Americas in 2013. Car owner and Major League Baseball pitcher C.J. Wilson also will field the No. 3 ZoomZoomNation/Motor Oil Matters Mazda MX-5 for Tyler McQuarrie and Marc Miller.
“This is a very important race for us,” McAleer said. “We know there is going to be some serious competition here, particularly our championship rivals, but we are going out with confidence. We won two years ago and we led last year. I personally would be disappointed if we didn’t end up on the podium here. I am not thinking about the championship until the last race at Road Atlanta. We need to do a good job here first before we assess a title.”
Andrew Carbonell regained the lead in the ST standings with a fourth-place finish at VIR in the No. 26 Freedom Autosport SemperFiFund.org Mazda MX-5. He will be rejoined by Liam Dwyer this weekend, with whom he co-drove to victory at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca earlier this year. Carbonell has 212 points, with McAleer and McCumbee three points back at 209.
Jeff Mosing, an Austin resident, has three consecutive podium finishes in the No. 56 Murillo Racing/Mosing Motorcars Mazda MX-5 co-driven by Eric Foss, the defending ST champion. Foss, who lives in Dallas, is 16 points behind Carbonell with 196 points.
Spencer Pumpelly and rookie co-driver Luis Rodriguez Jr. lead the ST class with three victories this season. They won at VIR in the No. 17 RS1 Porsche Cayman, leading the three-car team.
Defending Circuit of The Americas ST winner Kyle Gimple has a new car and co-driver for the event. After winning last year’s race in a Compass360 Racing Honda Civic Si, the team now fields a pair of Audis, including the No. 75 AERO Advanced Paint Technology/Children’s Tumor Foundation Audi S3 for Gimple and Paul Holton.
Rebel Rock Racing returns to the event with three Porsche Caymans, including the No. 08 entry for former NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and XFINITY Series regular Carlos Contreras of San Antonio and Mexico City’s Ruben Pardo.
Opening practice at Circuit of The Americas will be on Wednesday at 2:25 p.m. ET, with qualifying at 2:35 p.m. ET on Thursday. The two-hour, 30-minute race begins at 1:40 p.m. ET on Friday, and will be streamed live on IMSA.com and on the IMSA mobile app.
Contact:
Nate SiebensSenior Manager, IMSA Communications
(386) 310-6568
nsiebens
Sunday Group Management 