Noaker Wins Race of Attrition in Opening Sebring Round

Robert Noaker survived a late-race restart to claim victory in an incident-filled opening round of the Mustang Challenge season at Sebring International Raceway.

The reigning series champion fended off pressure from second-place finisher Devin Anderson and opened up a 5.653-second gap by the time he took the checkered flag, securing pole position for Race 2 with his fastest lap time of 2:14.026 seconds in the process.

Noaker led the 21-car field to green and swiftly began opening a gap to Anderson behind before the field fell under yellow after the halfway mark. Noaker refused to give up his advantage when the race went green again with under ten minutes remaining.

In third place was Alex Bachoura, who not only secured a podium for Spark Performance but took the win in the Dark Horse Legends class, despite starting the race from 20th on the grid.

Corbin Collins finished fourth overall and third in the top Dark Horse class, despite losing ground earlier in the race while battling Marcus Vento for third at the time.

Tech Sport’s Colin Harrison rounded out the overall top-five after a tense battle with Collins, Vento and LAP Motorsports’ Cristian Perocarpi.

DHL pole-sitter Zachary Lee finished second in class and eighth overall, with early contender Alfonso Diaz’s race ending prematurely with a mechanical failure.

White smoke and fluid began pouring from Diaz’s then-class-leading No. 33 Mustang while he was comfortably leading, handed to Spark Performance’s Alex Bachoura when the TechSport driver pulled his car off track as the field fell under caution.

The race was interrupted by a full-course yellow shown for a stricken Scott Thompon, who suddenly appeared to lose drive in his No. 30 LAP Motorsports entry. Nearly simultaneously, Lee’s TechSport Mustang also stopped on track with its suspected mechanical failure.

In total, no fewer than six cars retired from the race, with four competitors either pulling their cars into pit lane or behind the wall.

Race 2 gets underway at 10:20 a.m. EST on Friday with live coverage available on IMSA’s YouTube channel and Peacock.

RESULTS: Race 1