Nolasport Wins GT4 SprintX Race 2 at VIR

Photo: Gavin Baker/SRO

Nolasport’s Matt Travis and Jason Hart took the win in Sunday’s second and final Pirelli GT4 America SprintX/East race at Virginia International Raceway.

Despite starting from pole, the pair had a far from straight-forward race, having to survive close battles with a number of other cars.

Hart kept the lead at the start but lost it to Race 1 winner Stevan McAleer after ten minutes, with the Classic BMW driver going on to lead most of the remainder of the race.

McAleer’s co-driver Justin Raphael actually finished first on track but the team was given a post-race time penalty for a short pit stop.

It was deemed the No. 29 BMW M4 GT4’s mandatory driver change pit stop was one second below the 71-second minimum time, leading the stewards to award the team a drive-through penalty.

A pair of late-race safety car periods prevented Raphael from serving the drive-through, which was therefore converted to a 30-second post-race penalty.

This promoted Travis’ Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport to the overall win and GT4 SprintX Pro-Am class honors.

The GT4 East Pro-Am win went to second-placed Precision Driving Tech with its BMW shared by Marko Radisic and Karl Wittmer, ahead of GT4 SprintX Am winners Vesko Kozarov and Jeff Burton for Rearden Racing.

The final class, GT4 East Am, went to the BGB Motorsports Group Porsche of Thomas Collingwood and John Tecce, who finished eighth overall. 

Park Place Motorsports and Murillo Racing both looked set to challenge for the win early in the race but separate issues took their Porsche and Mercedes-AMG GT4 out of contention.

Matt Fassnacht crashed off course during the second half with an electrical failure that stopped the ABS from working, with the crash bringing out the first safety car period and ending Murillo’s race.

The second and race-ending safety car period was called after Alan Brynjolfsson crashed his Park Place Porsche into the tire barriers shortly after the restart.

RESULTS: Race 2 (GT4 SprintX)
RESULTS: Race 2 (GT4 East)

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.