McAleer: “Choosing the Battles” Gave AutoTechnic GS Title

Stevan McAleer credited the mindset of “choosing the battles” that allowed he and Austin Krainz to secure the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge GS title at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

McAleer and Krainz drove their No. 27 AutoTechnic Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO to a third place finish in Friday’s Fox Factory 120, which helped BMW earn its eighth manufacturers’ championship in series competition.

McAleer took control of the points lead for good after a multi-car battle following the second round of pitstops.

He said the mindset of thinking big picture and knowing the points scenario before he took over driving duties from Krainz paid dividends in the second half of the race.

“I know I’ve already worked out the points [of] where I need to be in what position I need to be in,” he told Sportscar365.

“I’m just choosing the battles and making sure that you know we don’t go off the race track for no reason.

“Just before I got in, they showed me that we were all tied on points at 2400 apiece. That’s not good because the 95 car had had a win under the belt, so they would have taken it.

“The mindset is really to try and do everything we’ve done all season. Don’t mess up the pit stop, nice driver change, which we did, and a really good out and in lap.

“Again, I don’t think I had a strong in-lap on the first stop, but I really nailed the second one. The racing changes so much.”

McAleer battled the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW and the No. 13 McCumbee McAleer Racing Ford Mustang GT4 both on-track and for the title.

Recalling the final hour battle, McAleer said he needed balance between execution and aggressiveness.

“I think again a lot of faster cars out there, but just execution and a lot of my moves were aggressive today,” he said.

“But I had to force the issue to try and get by, and a couple of cars made some side to side contact, but much racing.

“The race was a lot of fun. We knew what we had to do.

“When you get to this stage in the championship, there’s cars that I’ll race and there’s cars that I will not race. We had to race the No. 95 and the No. 13.

“We knew that the 44 car [Ibiza Farm Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4] was going to be as fast as can be, and it was to get as close to that car as we could, so the team executed perfectly.

“Aside from that, a special moment for Austin and Roland [Krainz]. I could see them crying on the wall there, so it was a special moment.”

McAleer won his second Pilot Challenge title after taking the 2015 championship with CJ Wilson Racing in a Mazda MX-5 in the now-defunct ST class.

He said being on both slides of a title fight in the series helped him focus in the final stint.

“I just put my head down and hit my marks,” said McAleer. “I’ve been in this position before, both as a winner and a loser.

“We had a mechanical failure in 2016 that took another championship. Those last 20 minutes of the race, you can hear every nut and bolt creak on that car.

“I honestly thought we would have would have been quite a ways off to some of the other manufacturers, but we had pace.

“We’re real quick in the corners, good in breaking. We lacked a little bit in straight line speed, but we could make the rest of that up in the corners, so it was a good day.”