Noaker Dominates Race 1 in Charlotte

Robert Noaker dominated the opening round of the Mustang Challenge weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval in the penultimate race of the IMSA-sanctioned single-make championship season.

Noaker led the field at the start, though he came under early pressure from Marcos Vento, before beginning to steadily open up a significant gap at the head of the field.

The RNR frontman, who wrapped up the Dark Horse drivers’ championship during the last round at the Circuit of The Americas, took the checkered flag a commanding 22.645 seconds clear of the second-place finishing Sam Paley, who fought his way up the order after starting seventh in his No. 26 Paley Motorsport Ford Mustang Dark Horse R.

Behind, a tight battle emerged for the top five positions in the middle stages, which culminated with Vento being sent spinning after Will Lucas attempted a move for second into Turn 10.

Lucas would eventually shuffle back to fourth, with Vento dropping down near the rear of the Dark Horse class.

The race stabilized in the final 20 minutes and saw Devin Anderson complete the overall podium in the No. 22 TechSport car.

Andrew Aquilante was classified fourth in his debut race ahead of Lucas, who rounded out the overall top-five, losing a position after a ten-second post-race time penalty was applied for his contact with Vento.

After entering the weekend level on points with Dark Horse Legends rival Zachry Lee, Alex Bachoura ran unchallenged for the DHL race win, despite losing pace in the final laps. His eighth-place overall finish after fighting inside the top five early handed him the class points advantage heading into the final round this evening.

Alfonso Diaz finished second in class after a hard-fought battle with Lee midway through the race, which ended when Lee straight-lined the entry to the final chicane and shuffled back to fourth in class with just over ten minutes to go.

Paolo Salvatore and Stephen Vajda both survived separate spins at the back straight chicane, with both able to rejoin the rear of the field, avoiding a yellow flag intervention.

All 20 Dark Horse Rs entered in the event took the start and the finish in the 45-minute sprint race, which ran entirely green.

With no one able to best Noaker’s second-best lap from Friday’s qualifying, he earns the pole position for Race 2 and completes his clean sweep of qualifying in all 12 points-paying rounds on U.S. soil this season.

Race 2 is slated for 8 p.m. EST under the Roval lights and will feature live coverage on Peacock as well as IMSA and Ford Performance’s YouTube channels.

Results: Race 1