Newell, De Angelis Win Race 2 from 26th on Grid

Gray Newell and Roman De Angelis used a well-timed pitstop under caution to win overall from 26th on the grid in Pirelli GT4 America Race 2 at Barber Motorsports Park.

The No. 24 Aston Martin Vantage GT4 Evo crossed the line 0.954 seconds ahead of the No. 97 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 in a race that was marred by a multi-car crash on the opening lap that took out seven cars.

The incident was triggered when the No. 7 ACI Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport of Kay van Berlo was spun round by AutoTechnic Racing’s Zac Anderson at Turn 12.

The resulting melee took out the No. 102 TPC Racing McLaren Artura GT4, No. 36 BimmerWorld BMW, No. 94 Random Vandals BMW, No. 9 Blackdog Speed Shop Nissan Z NISMO GT4, No. 099 Rotek Racing Porsche and No. 5 Flying Lizard Motorsports Nissan.

Anderson was later given a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

During the resulting safety car period, which wasn’t cleared until the halfway stage of the race, race control opened the pits with Newell’s No. 24 Aston Martin at the head of a group of cars to immediately come in.

With the rest of the field pitting one lap later, this shook up the order and put the newly installed De Angelis near the head of the field at the restart behind the pair of Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVOs of Lance Bergstein and Corey Lewis.

Lewis and De Angelis quickly dispatched the Am-class No. 72 KRUGSPEED machine of Bergstein, after which Heart of Racing took the lead when Lewis was ordered to serve a drive-through penalty for failing to hit the minimum pitstop time.

Now out front, the No. 24 Aston Martin cleared off as Heart of Racing briefly ran 1-2 when Hannah Grisham moved past Bergstein when the Canadian ran wide.

While Grisham soon dropped back behind a charging No. 97 BMW driven by Boehm, De Angelis opened a gap of twelve seconds.

This was then dashed when the No. 98 Random Vandals BMW of Kris Wilson stopped on track, having nurtured damage since the opening lap incident.

After the restart, De Angelis kept Boehm at bay to claim both the overall win and Pro-Am class honors, while Boehm and Koch finished first in Silver.

Grisham and Hannah Greenemeier completed the overall podium aboard the No. 26 Heart of Racing Aston Martin.

Alex Vogel and Matt Bell finished fourth in the No. 43 P1 Groupe Mercedes-AMG GT4, while Lewis recovered from his earlier penalty to storm up to fifth overall in the No. 68 Smooge Racing Toyota he shared with Tyler Gonzalez.

Lewis fought a contact-heavy battle with the No. 77 VPX Motorsports Porsche of Alex Ellis and Danny Dyszelski in the final minutes, which included an order from race control to Ellis to let Lewis back past after initially gaining the position.

The Am-class win, meanwhile, went to the No. 72 KRUGSPEED Toyota which Bergstein shared with Anthony Geraci.

RESULTS: Race 2