Change Racing Wins Super Trofeo Race 1 at Mid-Ohio

Corey Lewis and Madison Snow teamed to win the first race of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North American series for Change Racing.

It was a closely contested affair in the first half of the race before two full-field cautions helped decide the outcome at the 12-turn, 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The race marked the beginning of the sixth edition of the Lamborghini one-make series in North American and the start here of the 10th season worldwide of the series.

A total of 17 of the new Huracan Super Trofeo Evo machines took the green flag with P1 Motorsports, Lamborghini Broward’s Loris Spinelli leading the field to speed. Spinelli and his teammate JC Perez came into the race with the momentum after winning last week’s second race in the season-opening pair of races at Monza in Italy.

Spinelli jumped to the lead at the beginning with a fast start with the drop of the green flag on the backstretch. He drove the No. 71 to over a two second lead in the first six laps of the race. Madison Snow closed the gap to just over a second over the next few laps as he was closely followed by the No. 1 Wayne Taylor Racing, Lamborghini Paramus entry of Trent Hindman.

Those close gaps continued until the mandatory pit window opened 20 minutes into the race. Spinelli decided to stay out and drove his Lamborghini onto pit lane with 23 minutes remaining to turn the car over to Perez. Shortly after that stop, the first full-field yellow occurred as the No. 7 WTR car driven by Sheena Monk spun out in Turn 4.

The caution time was extended to almost 16 minutes after Jonathan Cecotto, who had taken over from Hindman, lost the rear right tire early during the full-field caution to take them out of contention.

On the re-start, Perez was back in the lead of a close battle with Corey Lewis in the No. 29 behind him in second place and Taylor Proto in the No. 50 US RaceTronics car trailing in third.

With three minutes remaining Lewis made a move to get around Perez and there was contact between the two that resulted in a tire puncture of the right rear tire on the No. 71 that sent Perez spinning off the track. The incident resulted in the second full-field caution of the race and Lewis went on to drive to the overall and Pro class victory under yellow.

Brandon Gdovic drove to a second-place finish in the class along with teammate Shinya Sean Michimi, while Proto and his teammate Edoardo Piscopo finished third.

Dylan Murcott and Patrick Liddy earned the Pro-Am victory for PPM, while the No. 10 WTR Lamborghini of Stevan McAleer and Randy Sellari finished second in the class.

Ryan Hardwick, driving the No. 2 Dream Racing Motorsport entry, took the lead from the start in the Am division, but following the mandatory pitstops, it was Damon Ockey in the No. 09 Lamborghini for US RaceTronics who grabbed the lead and held on to the class victory over the PPM duo of Shea Holbrook and Martin Barkey.

The LB Cup race was led from green to checkered by the No. 88 US RaceTronics team of Parris Mullins and Mark Proto. Mullins drove first and opened up a large gap before the first pit stop, and after the yellow flag incident by Monk, the team easily went on to the win the class.

The weekend’s second race will take place Sunday morning at 10:25 a.m. with McAleer on the pole. 

RESULTS: Race 1