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While this was a support race, and there is not too much cross over between cup car and sports car fans, there was a pretty strong turnout. The infield berms were all filled; the car corals stretched the length of the back straight and included Corvettes, Porsches, BMWs, Mustangs, Camaros, and Audis.
This is the view looking from turn 7 back to turn 6. It's just a long dragstrip to a very tight 90° bend at 7.The first race of the day was the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. All of the racers are based on production models, and split into two classes, Grand Sport (GS) and Street Touring (ST). This race has the feel of an old school Trans Am race, with Camaros and Mustangs trading paint to the finish with 911s, M3s, and 370Zs. All are closely matched and the race resembles a freight train as they run nose to tail around the track. ST offered the same excitement, but with lower power. And while several cars had some new bruises, overall the race was clean with very little FCYs. In the end, the strong running 06 Stevenson Camaro Z/28 driven by Robin Liddel, took the win by 3 seconds over the 46 BMW M3 of Edwards and Hindman. John Edwards then jumped in the 56 GTLM BMW Z4 for the TUSC race. ST had the same tight finish between two Porsche Caymans, with the 50 car beating out the 42 by 3 seconds. The other part of that story is how they both beat out the 04 Porsche Cayman and 23 BMW 128 when they both ran low on fuel in the final lap. All of this played a great warm up to the excitement to follow in the TUSC race.
The GS class winning Stevenson Camaro…
This is the view of turn 5 on the lower right, and the cars are exiting turn 6 to start the run down to turn 7 on the left side.
The other Stevenson Camaro rocketing off the curb in turn 5.
The second place winner in ST.
