Workman, Gonzalez Keep Title Hopes Alive With Saturday Win

Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO

Westin Workman and Tyler Gonzalez kept their slim Pirelli GT4 America Silver class title hopes alive with their fourth victory of the season in Saturday’s penultimate round of the season at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Sam Craven, meanwhile, locked up the Pro-Am class championship following Kenton Koch’s second place class finish in the No. 94 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO.

Gonzalez took his No. 68 RAFA Racing Team Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 to a 3.518-second win over the No. 131 Advance Motorsports McLaren Artura GT4 of Parker DeLong.

Workman started the 60-minute contest from pole and maintained the lead through a frantic opening lap and subsequent restart following a heavy crash for the No. 47 Nolasport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport of Matt Travis.

The Toyota Development Driver pitted at the opening of the pit window at the 25-minute mark and escaped a potential penalty with the team seen ripping the car’a damage rear bumper off during the mandatory stop.

The No. 028 RS1 Porsche of Spencer Pumpelly, who ran third in the opening stint, appeared to be in prime position for he and co-driver Luca Mars to clinch the Silver class title one race early but the car suffered a left-front puncture, resulting in a 12-second longer stop than the minimum time.

It dropped Mars down to 13th overall and sixth in class at the time and was unable to gain any positions in class.

Pro-Am class race honors went to the No. 33 Blackdog Racing McLaren of Michael Cooper and Tony Gaples, but it wasn’t enough for Craven to lock up the title in second place class-finishing No. 94 Random Vandals BMW that was taken to the finish by co-driver Koch.

Nolan Allaer, who crossed the line fourth overall on the road and second in class in his No. 77 McCumbee McAleer Racing Ford Mustang GT4, dropped to 14th overall and seventh in Pro-Am after being served a 14.18-second post-race time penalty for having too short of a pit stop.

The No. 7 ACI Motorsports Porsche of Trenton Estep and Yves Baltas completed the Silver class podium in third, ahead of Pro-Am runners Cooper and Koch.

Alex and Michael Garcia took top honors in the Am class in their freshly rebuilt No. 21 ACI Motorsports BMW.

While the No. 30 TechSport Racing Mustang GT4 of Frankie Muniz led early, co-driver Tyler Stone lost the class lead to Alex Garcia for the class lead with 20 minutes to go.

It came in a crucial points boost to the brothers, who have closed the gap to Muniz and Stone with one race to go.

The season-ending race is set for Sunday at 10:25 a.m. EST with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

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