Gidley Doubles Up With Sunday Sonoma Win

Photo: Andrew Miterko/SRO

Memo Gidley doubled up in the season opening GT America powered by AWS weekend by claiming victory in Sunday’s race at Sonoma Raceway.

The SKI Autosports driver took his Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II from a pole to his second win out of two races, finishing 1.224 seconds ahead of the second-placed No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Kyle Washington.

It marked the Georgia-based team’s first sweep of a weekend in SRO America competition.

The 40-minute contest started with a multi-car incident triggered by the No. 22 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Marc Muzzo, who first made contact with Ross Chouest’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R before sending the Scott Blind-driven Ruckus Racing Porsche off-track.

Chouest spun two corners later after his car’s left-rear tire went down following the contact, resulting in a full-course caution to retrieve the stricken Corvette.

Once the race restarted with 28 minutes to go, Gidley extended his advantage over Washington, who started on the front row courtesy of setting the second-fastest lap in Race 1.

Dave Musial Sr. completed the overall and SRO3 class podium in third aboard the No. 72 Wright Motorsports Porsche, followed by Joel Cortes, in the RS1 Porsche, in fourth.

Mirco Schultis, who was taken out by Cortes in Saturday’s race, rebounded in his repaired Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R to finish Race 2 in fifth, thanks to a last-lap pass on Muzzo.

Schultis set the race’s fastest lap in the process of his charge through the field in the fan-favorite Callaway Corvette.

Blind, who got shuffled to the rear of the field, passed the No. 04 HP-TECH Motorsport Ferrari of Tony Davis for position in the final 15 minutes to record a seventh place result.

Cup class honors went again to the No. 89 RacingSupport Ginetta GTP8 of David Lecko, following an early challenge by Yousuf Nabi in Gotham Motorsports’ Ferrari 488 Challenge EVO.

Craig Lumdsen also swept the weekend in GT4, in the lone BMW M4 GT4 EVO run by Flying Lizard Motorsports.

RESULTS: Race 2

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