McLeod Wins Inaugural Le Mans Invitational Race

Cameron McLeod converted pole position into victory at the inaugural Mustang Challenge Le Mans Invitational on Friday morning at the Circuit de la Sarthe, leading every lap in the process.

The Ryan McLeod Racing Cars driver led the 39-car field to the green flag, maintaining his advantage in the No. 92 Ford Mustang Dark horse R until the race ended under red flag conditions following a crash at the Porsche Curves.

Ford Performance Junior Driver Sam Paley remained hot on his heels in the opening stages and finished runner-up, 5.553 seconds behind McLeod.

A hard-fought battle for the final podium position emerged halfway through the race, with Junior Driver Marco Signoretti winning out after swapping positions and running nose-to-tail with Academy Motorsport stablemate Matt Nicoll-Jones.

Jenson Altzman’s fifth-place overall and Dark Horse class behind Nicoll-Jones saw him as one of five Ford Juniors inside the top-ten.

Robert Noaker began his charge through the field at the drop of the green flag, climbing from 39th to 21st position by the end of the first lap, and into the overall top ten before the halfway mark.

The Mustang Challenge points leader finished the race an impressive sixth overall in the non-points-paying race, with his progress halted by a late red flag.

Alex Bachoura took the Dark Horse Legends class win for Spark Performance Mustang at the French circuit, finishing eighth overall after passing class pole-sitter Dan McKeever, who led in the opening stages of the 45-minute sprint race.

Chelsea Denofa emerged victorious in Dark Horse Stars after Tanner Foust, who crossed the finish line first in class on track, was handed a one-minute post-race time penalty, dropping him behind his fellow DHS competitors and promoting the 2023 Formula Drift Champion to the top step of the class podium.

According to a steward’s bulletin, Foust was penalized for breaching “gearbox and speed limit” parameters set by Ford Performance earlier in the race week, creating “an advantage to competitor No. 1” during the race.

The race was red-flagged with less than four minutes remaining after a heavy collision for David Wall, who hit the tire barriers out of the Porsche Curves while running sixth.

Wall emerged from the car under his own power, and the race was not resumed, locking in the running order at the time the red was displayed by race control.

In the final ten minutes, Josh Hansen’s race came to an end after side-by-side contract with DeNofa through the Ford Chicane resulted in the MotorCity Dark Horse Racing driver in the wall, heading onto the front straight, and local yellows on track. No action was taken by the stewards on the incident.

On the formation lap, Erik Evans pulled his Academy Motorsports Dark Horse R over at the second Mulsanne Chicane, but the incident did not impact the start of the race.

Andrew Miedecke spun and continued at Arnage at the beginning of the race, rejoining near the rear of the field after starting the race in the mid-pack.

In the opening ten minutes, Keith Kassulke stopped on track near the beginning of the Mulsanne Straight, necessitating the activation of Slow Zone 3 while the No. 191 Ryan McLeod Racing Cars Mustang was recovered.

During the race Chip Van Vurst was shown the black and orange flag for reported smoke. The Creative Auto Sport would ultimately retire in the closing stages.

Race 2 of the Le Mans Invitational is scheduled for 8:45 a.m. CEST (2:45 a.m. EST) with live streaming coverage on Ford Performance’s and IMSA’s YouTube channels, with additional commentary available on Radio Le Mans.

RESULTS: Race 1

This report was updated at 6:00 p.m. CEST to reflect the post-race time penalty applied for Tanner Foust…