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Porsche Carrera Cup NA

Championship Battles Tighten Entering Road America

Porsche Carrera Cup continues busy summer stretch with visit to Road America this weekend…

Photo: Porsche

As Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by the Cayman Islands approaches the final three weekends of its sophomore season, the battles have tightened across all championships.

The single-make series will contest rounds 11 and 12 at Road America this weekend, with 34 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race cars attempting the set themselves apart in the pair of 40-minute races.

With only six rounds remaining, both races on the 4.048-mile, 14-turn track are critical to title aspirations in the Pro, Pro-Am and Am classes.

The most recent pair of races, held on the city street circuit in Toronto, Canada, saw a new winner, Trenton Estep, a surge in Pro-Am by Efrin Castro and a massive, three position shake-up in the Am class.

A grid of 14 cars are entered in the Pro class.

While four consecutive wins to open the season – plus two more at Watkins Glen International – made Kay van Berlo the favorite, recent success by the competition have drawn the field back up to the rear bumper of No. 3 Kelly-Moss Porsche.

Van Berlo holds a 52-point margin on Parker Thompson, who has two wins thus far in the No. 9 JDX Racing entry.

The two-top placeholders flipped wins at Road America in 2021 with van Berlo victorious in Race 1, Thompson in Race 2.

With a potential for a single entrant to earn 56 points each weekend (25 per win, two per pole position and one per fastest race lap), even van Berlo is not safe atop the standings.

With two victories in the No. 6 MDK Motorsports Porsche in Toronto, Estep moved himself into third-place in the Pro class as the Texan comes to Wisconsin.

The success moved him around Dickinson, who has hounded his Kelly-Moss teammate with the No. 53 all season.

The young driver is yet to score his first win in the series but has been a constant at the sharp end of the field.

After sitting out Toronto, Leh Keen returns to defend his top-five spot in the Pro class. The veteran driver of the No. 12 311 RS Motorsports Porsche is 155 markers back from van Berlo and is in search of his first win in the series.

With 12 Pro-Am class cars entered for the weekend’s races, class leader Alan Metni hopes to use the local knowledge of his Kelly-Moss team to set the No. 99 apart.

However, his major competition – as it was last year when the two charged into the final round with the championship to be decided between them – is teammate Castro.

The driver from the Dominican Republic has jumped several spots in the standings after difficult open races in the first three stops. However, the trend has been broken with Castro’s No. 65 Kelly-Moss Porsche scoring four wins – the last three consecutively – in five starts.

The two are separated by only 16 points now. Metni won both rounds here in 2021.

The greatest swap for position at the last round was in the Am class. Mark Kvamme had led the class from the first pole position at Sebring.

But Kvamme – who has won five of ten races held thus far in the No. 43 MDK Motorsports machine – sat out Toronto.

That opened the door for Bill Smith to jump from third place to the lead after winning both races on the Canadian streets in the No. 42 Topp Racing Porsche.

John Goetz  held onto second place in the No. 57 Wright Motorsports Porsche as Kvamme slipped 16 points back to the Smith. Goetz is nine behind the Texan.

Track action kicks off on Thursday with opening practice, with an additional practice session and qualifying set for Friday. Race 1 of the weekend is set for a 8:50 a.m. CT (9:50 a.m. ET) start on Saturday, with live coverage on Peacock, IMSA.tv and PorscheCarreraCup.us, featuring commentary from the IMSA Radio team. Race 2 takes the green flag Sunday at 8:20 a.m. CT (9:20 a.m. ET).

The latest news, photos and video features from the trusted Sportscar365 web staff.

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