Gidley Dominates Opening Race at Sebring

Photo: Regis Lefebure/SRO

Memo Gidley claimed a dominant win in Saturday’s opening GT America powered by AWS race at Sebring International Raceway.

The TKO Motorsports driver took his Flying Lizard Motorsports-run Bentley Continental GT3 to a 2.325-second victory over the No. 88 Zelus Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of Jason Harward in second.

Having started from pole, Gidley led every lap of the 40-minute single-driver sprint race.

A spin for the No. 191 Rearden Racing Lamborghini of Jeff Burton on the final lap promoted Rodrigo Sales to the overall podium in the No. 77 Compass Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo, which started from the pit lane after undergoing a tire change on the grid.

Sales, making his GT America debut, was due to start second.

Jason Daskalos in his previous-gen Audi R8 LMS ultra, meanwhile, dropped to fifth on the final lap due to an unknown issue, which gave Andy Wilzoch a fourth place overall result in his No. 460 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Burton rebounded to come home sixth overall ahead of the lone GT2 entrant of Elias Sabo in the No. 8 GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS GT2 car.

Sean Quinlan held off a hard-charging Jason Bell to secure the GT4 class win in his No. 119 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW M4 GT4.

Quinlan crossed the line just 0.469 seconds ahead of Bell’s No. 2 GMG Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 after a race-long battle between the two cars.

Ross Chouest completed the podium in the race, which did not count towards season-long GT America points.

The second invitational race of the weekend is set to get underway Sunday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

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