Koch Makes Late Pass for Makeup Race Win at Barber

Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO

Kenton Koch made a late-race pass on Tyler Gonzalez to pick up his and Kevin Boehm’s sixth Pirelli GT4 America season Silver class win of the season in Friday’s Road America makeup race at Barber Motorsports Park.

Koch, in the No. 97 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO, got around the No. 68 RAFA Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 with two minutes remaining in the 60-minute contest to extend his and Boehm’s points lead in the process.

The margin of victory at the line was 0.858 seconds.

A full-course caution for the No. 188 Fast Track Racing BMW of Judson Holt, who spun after slight contact from James Clay, resulted in a yellow just as the pit stop window opened with 33 minutes to go.

The majority of the front-runners, except for pole-sitter Riley Dickinson, who led the opening stanza, ACI Motorsports teammate Loek Hartog, as well as the No. 37 Dome Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Marc Miller, all dashed in for service.

It promoted the entire Silver class field ahead once the three Pro-Am leaders pitted for driver changes while under the yellow, and the subsequent restart with 22 minutes to go that was led by Gonzalez until the closing moments of the race.

With two more races still to go this weekend at Barber, the Random Vandals pairing have a chance of potentially clinching the Silver class title ahead of next month’s season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The No. 4 JMF Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT4 Evo of Braydon Arthur, who was running third, was forced into the pits in the final ten minutes of the race with loose bodywork, which promoted the sister No. 3 Aston of Jonathan Neudorf to the final podium position in Silver with co-driver Jesse Webb.

Dickinson’s co-driver, Curt Swearingin, meanwhile, held onto the Pro-Am class win in the No. 7 ACI Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport.

Swearingin took advantage of track position with the pit stop under yellow to take a sizable class win over the second-placed No. 94 Random Vandals BMW of Josh Green and Sam Craven.

Tyler McQuarrie and James Walker Jr. completed the Pr0-Am podium in the No. 82 BimmerWorld BMW.

Random Vandals also emerged victorious in Am, in a race that saw multiple incidents and subsequent penalties that helped pave the wave for Darius Trinka and Paul Sparta to take top class honors.

Both the No. 606 Thunder Bunny Racing BMW of Allen Patten and No. 36 BimmerWorld BMW were served with drive-though penalties for incident responsibility, although managed to still complete the podium in third and second, respectively.

Patten got into Charlie Postins while battling for the class lead with 20 minutes to go, while Postins had to serve a penalty given to his co-driver Clay for contact with Holt that brought out the race’s one-and-only yellow.

Patten, meanwhile, was handed a second drive-through for a pit speed violation while serving his first penalty.

Next up for GT4 America is qualifying for this weekend’s originally scheduled rounds, which gets underway Saturday at 10:15 a.m. CST.

RESULTS: Road America Makeup 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