BARTONE: Cold, Sheep and Winning in Sonoma

We had the opportunity to enjoy some of the California sunshine along with some Golden State cold and rain for the second weekend of SRO America action.

With our new Bartone Bros Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo cars we are taking every opportunity, especially early in the season, to get maximum laps and learn these new cars.

The week prior to the SRO race weekend we had some rain and cold at Sonoma Raceway for our test days, which turned out to be the same weather we got for the race weekend.

On the sim, the track seems very technical with a few, if you are daring, places to pass. Then when you get behind the wheel and take a few laps around the track located at the gateway to Wine Country you really get a feel for the elevation change from the start/finish line up through turns one and two.

Then you plunge down through a very tricky carrousel to a slow combination of corners at the end of the track.

Throw in cool temperatures and having to keep heat in the Pirelli tires and it makes for an interesting weekend.

In qualifying for the Fanatec GT World Challenge America race, I got caught out by, let’s say, youthful over exuberance. I was coming out of Turn 2 and into three carrying too much speed, got crossed up, and did a lazy spin through the countryside.

Luckily no damage, but I think I even got a glimpse of the sheep that they use to keep the grass low on the hillside. I had to be extricated, which meant we started from last on the grid.

In the first GT America powered by AWS race on Saturday the team didn’t have the race tires fitted on the car on the pre grid. Which means I had to start from the back of the field.

I was able to move up and pass a handful of cars and finish fifth. It’s tricky, we can use tire warmers in the GT World Challenge races, but not for GT America.

Later the same day Andy Pilgrim and I ran the first round of the GT World Challenge America season. It was good to get one of these 90-minute races under our belt with a pit stop, driver change, tire change, and fuel fill.

The RealTime team performed flawlessly, and we took the top-placing hardware home in the Am category both Saturday and Sunday. We’re hoping to see more Am competition as the season progresses.

On Sunday I started the GT America race fifth on the grid based upon my fast lap from Saturday. I had a good battle early in the race with Jason Daskalos and was able to get by him.

I then set my sights on Memo Gidley, who I think was born in the infield as this is his home track.

I wanted to mirror his lines since he knows this track so well, not often you can draft an IndyCar driver and learn. I was able to get a good launch off Turn 8 and get him into the start of the chicane.

George Kurtz was next. I had a run on him a couple of times and was able to get by in the same place just before the second caution flew with just about five minutes left for second place.

Just a few seconds after I passed George the yellow came out. The officials couldn’t get the race going again so we finished P2. We later learned that the Porsche, that crossed the line first, failed tech inspection and I was awarded the win.

I would’ve liked to have had a lap or two to see what I could’ve done with the Porsche out front for the outright win, instead of the race being settled in the tech tent.

Lot of good racing and many lessons learned onto NOLA at the end of the month.