HINDMAN: Road America Debrief

Quite some time has passed since I last reported to you all, but it certainly was not for a lack of racing, that’s for sure!

Watkins Glen was the last event for the Blancpain Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America championship. Between then and now, there were two more races for the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge; Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Lime Rock.

The Bodymotion Racing Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport showed lots of speed in both of those races, but unfortunately we could not continue our winning ways. However, we netted solid 4th and 3rd place finishes, but we certainly are aiming for the top step of the podium every time we turn a lap.

This past weekend was my first time back in the Prestige Performance/Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo in about a month, and the first time Super Trofeo had ever visited Road America.

I must say, just the sheer sound of 20 screaming 5.2 liter V10s blasting down into turn one is quite spectacular to see and hear.

This weekend was shaping up to be the busiest yet for me personally. The schedule was packed and there were a fair amount of quick turn arounds between the CTSC and Super Trofeo sessions, so finding enough time to balance the two was difficult, but it’s definitely a nice problem to have.

Prior to Race 1 of Super Trofeo on Saturday evening, Cameron Cassels and I had our 2 hour 30-minute CTSC race. Although Cameron qualified (and made massive improvements in that short 15 minute run), we decided to make a big change to our strategy and have me start – first time I would start a CTSC race since Road Atlanta in 2014!

There were two cautions during that opening stint but we were still able to get out front and start pulling a gap. Finally on the third safety car period, we decided to take advantage and get Cam in the car for the middle stint.

In a race plagued by many laps behind the safety car, Cam managed to maintain solid track position throughout all of those restarts before handing the car back over to me for the final stint where we ultimately finished 5th.

Next on the schedule was race one of Super Trofeo. During testing and even through qualifying, Craig Duerson and I kept working on ourselves and the car to help close up our gap to the quickest guys.

We both want to not only win in the Pro-Am category, but we also want to be fighting for the overall win as well.

I qualified third for Race 1 and we were able to move up to second at the start going down into Turn 1. We were fighting some demons with our car all weekend, so I knew catching and passing the leader at that point was going to be high risk and one tall order.

All I wanted to do was keep him in my sights and not burn up the tires or car for Craig. Thanks to the Prestige Performance team, we had a fantastic pit stop that put Craig right out into the overall lead and he never looked back.

Unfortunately the race ended under yellow, but it was still a great feeling to know that we finally won overall due to great strategic calls and a fair bit of luck!

Race 2 proved to be much more of a fight but Craig did exactly what he needed to do in terms of keeping the car in one piece for our final push to the end.

We made up quite a lot of ground and caught the leader of the Pro-Am class with two laps remaining.

Unfortunately I just completely used up the car playing catch up and I was unable to attack and make a move for the lead.

Still, a great race because we brought home 2nd in class and 3rd overall – a great points day for us.

Massive thank you to my co-drivers, Craig and Cameron, along with the entire Prestige Performance/WTR and Bodymotion Racing teams for putting up with my constant disappearance!

Both crews gave us great race cars this weekend and I cannot ask for anything more.

We will be back at it for both championships in VIR coming up in two weeks time. I am looking forward to getting back on track and cleaning up some mistakes I had made this past weekend.

Can’t win em’ all but I’ll sure as hell try to!