Estep Claims Debut Win in Saturday COTA Round

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford

Trenton Estep held off Robert Noaker to claim victory in his Mustang Challenge debut in the first race of the weekend at Circuit of The Americas.

Estep, in the No. 16 MDK Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse R, led flag-to-flag in the 45-minute sprint contest on the Lone Star Le Mans weekend, which ended under full course caution following a two-car accident in Turn 3.

The No. 74 Robert Noaker Racing Mustang of points leader Tyler Maxson completed the overall and Dark Horse class podium in third.

Jeremy Fletcher finished fourth in the No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing Mustang after a battle with Reid Sweeney in the No. 31 RNR entry, which completed the top-five.

The No. 2 MMR Mustang of Max Opalski was sixth, followed by Brandon Gdovic, who rebounded from an opening lap spin in his No. 46 Precision Performance Motorsports entry to come home eighth.

Frankie Muniz, who was making a guest appearance in the No. 3 Spark Performance entry, came home tenth in class and 12th overall.

Dark Horse Legends honors went to MMR’s Zachry Lee for the sixth consecutive race.

Lee took his chrome-painted No. 48 Mustang to a ninth place overall finish.

The No. 33 Spark Mustang of Alex Bachoura finished second in class, ahead of Mike Stillwagon’s No. 19 Skip Barber Racing entry, which completed the podium.

The race featured three yellows.

The first came early in the running for the No. 84 Torre Racing Mustang of Paolo Salvatore, which stopped on track in Turn 16 after contact with the No. 52 KohR Motorsports entry of Christian Bach.

Bach was handed a ten-second post-race penalty for incident responsibility.

A second yellow came out for the No. 29 RNR Mustang of Mitch Marvosh, which stopped on track in Turn 9.

It initially set up a six-minute shootout to the finish but was aborted when Kal Kearns and Tom Tait came together in Turn 3, resulting in both the No. 66 Leaders Credit Union Competition Motorsports entry and the No. 8 MDK Mustang ending up in the barriers.

Race 2 gets underway Sunday at 8:40 a.m. CDT with live coverage on Peacock, IMSA.tv and Ford Performance’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