Davis, Dempsey Take First Series Win in Race 1 at VIR

Andrew Davis and John Dempsey became first-time winners in McLaren Trophy America after surviving a post-race time penalty to secure a win in the first race of the weekend at Virginia International Raceway.

Davis made a charge up the order from third after a late restart to bring the Pro-Am class No. 10 RWE Motorsport McLaren Artura Trophy Evo to lead a team 1-2 over the Pro-class winning No. 74 entry of James Li and Casey Dennis.

Tommy Pintos opened up a gap from the pole on the start, gradually extending a more than six-second lead over Dennis before being handed a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, dropping the Spaniard down to sixth on the road.

Dennis then took control of the field in his Pro-class ‘Lightning McLaren’-liveried Artura, some five and a half seconds clear of Colin Harrison.

After the mandatory round of pit stops, Li emerged from pit lane in the overall lead after taking over from Dennis and, crucially, ahead of a freshly-installed Cooper Broll in the Skip Barber Artura following a hard charge from Pintos after his early penalty to bring the No. 919 entry back into contention.

In the race’s only restart, Davis slipped up the inside of Broll before chasing down Li for the lead, making the decisive pass on his RWE stablemate in the final minutes.

Davis had to quickly open up a gap after being assessed a five-second time penalty for a short pit stop, eventually taking the checkered flag 1.896 seconds clear of Li once the penalty time was applied.

Jesse Lazare and Alexandra Hainer finished third overall and second in Pro-Am after strong stints from both drivers during the 50-minute contest after their No. 43 Motorsports In Action Artura that started the race from the third row of the grid.

Jeff Cook finished fourth to secure the win in Am after a chaotic second half of the race in the class, which saw the Dark Horse Racing move into the class lead in the final laps in the No. 5 McLaren he shares with Deniz Teoman, the highest-finishing Papaya Cup driver.

The late restart saw James Sofronas, who had made his way back to the lead of the Am class after losing ground in the early stages, make contact with Broll at Oak Tree Corner, resulting in a spin for the Skip Barber driver and an eventual drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

Before the penalty was assessed, however, Cook made the pass for the lead and eventual class win.

Canaan O’Connell rounded out the overall top five and finished second in Pro-Am in the No. 18 Flying Lizard Motorsports Artura he co-drove with Brandon Kreutz.

Tom Kopczynski suffered multiple spins in his No. 17 Riley Motorsports McLaren in the first half of the race.

The team’s race was later delayed when Kopczynski’s teammate, Eric Filgueras, pulled the Riley McLaren back into pit lane to change tires behind the safety car, eventually rejoining a lap down.

With just over 20 minutes to go, Harrison ground to a halt along Madison Avenue despite running at the front of the Am field in the first half of the race, bringing out the full-course caution and setting up a shootout for the win with just under ten minutes to go.

Qualifying for Race 2 of the weekend kicks off Sunday morning at 8:05 a.m. EST before Race 2 later that afternoon.

RESULTS: Race 1