GTD Pro Winner Harper Thought He “Blew It” With Pit Penalty

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Dan Harper admitted that he thought he “blew it” with a mistake on pit lane that initially put the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO out of contention, prior to a comeback run to claim GTD Pro honors in Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

Harper and co-driver Max Hesse both claimed their first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victories and gave the Paul Miller-owned squad its first win of the season after a come-from-behind run that turned into a controlling performance in the second half of the race.

Having started second in class, Harper jumped the class pole-sitting No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Andrea Caldarelli on the first round of pit stops but received a stop-and-hold plus 60-second penalty for running the red light at pit exit.

“I took the start and the rain came on very quickly, and it was a bit chaotic, to be honest,” said Harper. “I was glad when the first safety car came to calm everything down a little bit. Although it was Andrea and the Lamborghini and I that were first and second at the time, and we’d sort of got a little bit of a gap to the guys behind

“Then the heavy rain came, and then it was just trying to survive, not crash until — we were debating whether it would go red flag like it did last year. So we wanted to stay out to not lose the track position, or whether we would eventually have to pit for the rain tires.

“Then unfortunately I got a penalty for crossing the red light on the exit of the pit lane, and at that point I sort of thought I had blew it.”

Hesse added: “Obviously it was very unfortunate because we were in a good position at that time, and we knew we had a strong race car.

“We were hoping to just do our laps and be there at the end, but Dan decided differently.

“But no, it was fine. Then obviously had a couple of strong restarts which got us back to the front.

“And as Dan mentioned, those restarts really helped us to come here. Got us back into P1, and the team really did a great job with all the pit stops. They were always spot on, didn’t really lose any seconds in the pit lane today. So [I’m] really grateful to them.

“Dan got it done in the end, so really, really proud.”

Sunday’s win came on the same day that fellow BMW outfit ROWE Racing were victorious in the Nürburgring 24, a race the two former BMW Junior drivers have regularly participated in.

When asked if it was strange they were in Watkins Glen and not the Nürburgring this weekend, Hesse replied: “Yes and no.”

The German added: “Obviously we’ve done this race the past five years, since we were 18. So I would have loved to be there. But honestly, this has been great. So no doubt that this was, I think, the right choice for us this year. And over there BMW won, as well. So happy days.”

Harper added: “We were watching near enough from the start of the Nürburgring 24 yesterday in the afternoon, the whole way until the checkered flag. We were keeping an eye and supporting our guys.

“It was weird only seeing one car competing there for BMW. But great for them. I’m so happy for them, especially Augusto [Farfus], our ex-teammate. He’s been wanting to win that one for a long time, and he finally got it done. So that was fantastic, and it was great for us today, as well.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John