Loftsgard Extends Points Lead With VIR Race 1 Win

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford

Cole Loftsgard extended his Mustang Challenge North America points lead with a hard-fought victory in the opening race of the weekend at Virginia International Raceway.

Loftsgard held off multiple challenges from title rival Devin Anderson to claim his seventh victory of the season, with his No. 42 Round 3 Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse R finishing ahead of Anderson’s No. 22 TechSport Racing entry, which ended under full course caution.

It came in an incident-filled race that was slowed by four yellows, three of them for accidents in Turn 1.

The first came on the third lap when Dark Horse Legends championship contender Chris Clarke had a brake lock-up and backed his No. 9 Paley Motorsport with AAG Racing into the tire barriers.

While racing action restarted with 30 minutes left on the clock, an incident between the No. 63 Wheelhouse Motorsports entry of Joseph Dederichs and Paolo Salvatore’s No. 84 Mustang sent both cars into off into Turn 1.

Dederichs was given incident responsibility.

With lengthy cleanup required, it initially set up a 15-minute shootout to the finish, only for the caution to be called again for debris in Turn 1, which led to another restart with nine minutes to go.

The race-ending yellow came out with four minutes to go when Ryan Persing nosed his No. 29 Paley with AAG Mustang into the Turn 1 barriers.

The No. 34 Wheelhouse Mustang of Will Lucas completed the Dark Horse podium in third, ahead of teammate Sandy Satullo, who appeared to have had an incident with the No. 25 Flying Lion Motorsports entry of Ethan Low.

Low’s Mustang sustained right-front damage and was covered in mud, and pitted under the second yellow.

Persing’s late-race accident gave Tate Pritt a top-five finish in the No. 98 Automatic Racing entry, ahead of TechSport’s Colin Harrison.

Dark Horse Legends class honors provisionally went to Oleg Gorshkov for the third consecutive race, in another double victory for Round 3.

Gorshkov, who lost the lead to Tom Tait through the middle stages of the 45-minute contest, regained the top spot on the final restart.

However, an incident involving both cars will be reviewed post-session per IMSA race control.

Nick Smither completed the DHL podium in his No. 58 Mustang, with teammate Walter Bobko stopping on track on the final lap, which was behind the safety car.

Race 2 gets underway Sunday at 9:45 a.m. EST with live coverage on Peacock as well as Ford Racing and IMSA’s YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Race 1

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