McDonald Paces Opening Barber Practice

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

Blake McDonald continued his chart-topping form in GT America powered by AWS sessions by leading the way in the opening practice of the weekend at Barber Motorsports Park.

The DXDT Racing driver, who is not expected to race in the pair of 40-minute sprints, laid down a benchmark 1:22.599 in the No. 11 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R to outpace the competition by nearly 1.5 seconds.

Second quickest was SRO3 class points leader Justin Rothberg, who brought out an early session red flag after his No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO stopped on the back stretch.

It wiped out nearly one-third of the 30-minute session, although Rothberg returned to action to set a best time that was 1.384 seconds slower than McDonald’s pace-setting time.

Memo Gidley, in the No. 56 SKI Autosports Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, posted the third quickest time while Ross Chouest and Kyle Washington completed the top-five in their Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R and Porsche 911 GT3 R entries, respectively.

The No. 2 Racers Edge Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Jason Bell was sixth, ahead of GTA newcomer Joel Cortes in the No. 19 RS1 Porsche and Farhan Siddiqi’s FAST MD with Remstar Audi.

Tony Davis, in the debuting No. 004 HP-TECH Ferrari 296 GT3, was the only car not to set a time during the session.

Eric Powell, meanwhile, set the quickest time in the Bronze Test in the newly built No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3, in a session which ran immediately prior to GTA Practice 1.

GTA Practice 2 is on tap for Friday at 8:25 a.m. CST.

RESULTS: Practice 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