Grand-Am – Lime Rock Park – GT Classic Report
Pontiacs Come Good

The Pontiac GXP.R took its first Rolex Series win at Lime Rock on Monday, Tim Lewis and Leighton Reese also taking their first win in their #06 car. Porsches were second and third, Farnbacher from Tafel.

Pole man Wolf Henzler had dominated the early going, with a nice little two second lead over the Nick Ham Mazda, the two Pontiac GXP.Rs and Bryce Miller’s Porsche. That lead grew to three seconds – but past the 20 lap mark, the Pontiacs were looking strong. Kelly Collins in the better placed Pontiac passed the second placed Mazda, and then closed in on Henzler’s Tafel Porsche.

RJ Valentine pitted for Andy Lally on lap 27, the Laguna Seca winners going a lap down, and later copping a penalty for hitting pit equipment at a pit stop.

The first caution came on lap 34, 30 minutes into the race, the #67 TRG Porsche spinning and being collected by the #21 Matt Connolly Pontiac: the leading cars pitted, which left the Mustang briefly out front before it stopped during the caution – and as they went racing again, the front group looked very similar: Ham, Collins, Lux (in Henzler’s car) and Reese in the other Banner Pontiac.

Lap 42 and they were racing – but an incident further back in the field, at T1, on the re-start brought out an immediate caution again…. Greg Wilkins and Alex Tagliani both suffered door damage / loss. Pat Long was granted a penalty for his involvement in the incident. Here he is in more action.

Past the 50 lap mark and both Pontiacs passed the Mazda – and it became a Pontiac 1-2-3 as Drew Staveley in the #30 entry also passed Ham’s Mazda.

Collins pitted to hand to Paul Edwards on lap 59, the new driver then setting the race’s fastest lap – but a lap down. The other leaders pitted a little later, so for now it was the two Pontiacs out front, from.. not Ham, but the two Farnbacher Porsches of Leh Keen and Bryce Miller. Keen then pitted under green to hand over to Dominik Farnbacher, but the car was assessed a penalty. Pat Long, despite his penalty, had hauled the #81 Synergy 997 up to third at this midpoint of the race.

Staveley in #30 was the man on the move, passing Reese and pulling out a five second lead. Miller pitted to let Dirk Werner take over – and then it was caution time again, the Mustang having caught fire. The leading two Pontiacs pitted – but it turned out that two (of the three) had incurred penalties at their stops: #30 for the fire extinguisher man “touching pit equipment” and the #07 Paul Edwards car because the fire man wasn’t wearing “proper eyewear”.

So Tim Lewis led in #06, Pat Long pitting from the lead and going a lap down but getting it back thanks to the odd “second chance” rule. Lap 100 and they were racing again, but not for long, as the #26 Porsche stopped on track. Pat Long suffered a puncture, and had body damage, so he was out of contention – for the last 26 minutes of racing. Nick Ham was back in the Mazda, but he was a lap down.

Once it settled down for the re-start, Tim Lewis led, and he stayed out front to the end. Dirk Werner was chasing Wolf Henzler for second, the position changing with six laps to go. Paul Edwards recovered from a penalty (for hitting the #30 Pontiac) to finish right on Henzler’s tail, and the #30 Pontiac was fifth. Dominik Farnbacher recovered from a late penalty to finish sixth, so it was Pontiacs first, fourth and fifth, Porsches second, third and sixth.

“On the restart I was able to maintain the lead and run consistent lap times,” said Lewis. “The engineers and the crew really worked to get us a good race car all through practice and it paid off.”

“We really had to focus on managing our rear tires,” explained Wolf Henzler, “and we ended the day on the podium in third. The Tafel guys did a great job on the car and Eric had a strong stint behind the wheel and kept us up there. Our best finish of the year.”

Dirk Werner was happy enough to come away with second – and the joint points lead, with Ham and Tremblay.

Result
1 06 GT Banner Racing Leighton Reese / Tim Lewis Jr. Pontiac GXP.R 139 laps 2:30:33.501 54.873
2 87 GT Farnbacher Loles Motorsports Bryce Miller / Dirk Werner Porsche GT3 Cup –6.5s 54.772
3 74 GT Tafel Racing Eric Lux / Wolf Henzler Porsche GT3 Cup –10.6s 54.774

4 07 GT Banner Racing Pontiac Paul Edwards / Kelly Collins GXP.R –10.9s 54.303
5 30 GT Racers Edge Motorsports Drew Staveley / Mark Pavan Pontiac GXP.R –19.1s 55.153
6 85 GT Farnbacher Loles Motorsports Leh Keen / Dominik Farnbacher Porsche GT3 Cup –37.1s 55.064

7 42 GT Team Sahlen Joe Sahlen / Will Nonnamaker Corvette –50.4s 56.337
8 81 GT Synergy Racing Patrick Long / Craig Stanton Porsche GT3 Cup 138 laps 55.075
9 57 GT Stevenson Motorsports Marc Bunting / Dominic Cicero Corvette 55.301

10 66 GT TRG Andy Lally / RJ Valentine Porsche GT3 Cup 55.038 55.038

11 70 GT SpeedSource Sylvain Tremblay / Nick Ham Mazda RX-8 54.745

12 22 GT Alegra Motorsports Carlos de Quesada / Jean-Francois Dumoulin Porsche GT3 Cup 137 laps 55.793
13 43 GT Team Sahlen Wayne Nonnamaker / Joe Nonnamaker Corvette 132 laps 56.395
14 17 GT Doncaster Racing Mark Wilkins / Greg Wilkins Porsche GT3 Cup 115 laps 55.865

15 26 GT Alegra Motorsports Carlos de Quesada / Jean-Francois Dumoulin / Louis-Philippe Dumoulin Porsche GT3 Cup 99 laps 56.899
16 28 GT At Speed Motorsports Ian Baas / Bob Miller Porsche GT3 Cup 93 laps 55.779

17 15 GT Blackforest Motorsports Tom Nastasi / Alex Tagliani Mustang Cobra GT 87 laps 55.664
18 24 GT Matt Connolly Motorsports Mike Pickett / Ryan Eversley BMW M3 46 laps 57.978
19 69 GT SpeedSource Emil Assentato / Nick Longhi Mazda RX-8 42 laps 55.678

20 67 GT TRG Spencer Pumpelly / Marc Greenberg Porsche GT3 Cup 32 laps 56.443
21 21 GT Matt Connolly Motorsports Matt Connolly / Hal Prewitt / Jason Workman Pontiac GTO.R 32 laps 56.279
22 72 GT Tafel Racing Andrew Davis / Nathan Swartzbaugh Porsche GT3 Cup 26 laps 55.270