Am-Class Auto Technic BMW Leads Portland Second Practice

Auto Technic Racing’s Kris Wilson set the fastest lap during the second practice session for this weekend’s Pirelli GT4 America SprintX round at Portland International Raceway.

Wilson shot to the top of the timing charts in the closing stages of Friday afternoon’s 45-minute session with a time of 1:17.744 aboard the No. 16 BMW M4 GT4.

The 51-year-old is sharing the Auto Technic car with John Allen as part of the SprintX nationwide Am class entry.

There are four separate classes competing in the GT4 field this weekend, with Pro-Am and Am brackets for both the nationwide SprintX series and the West regional competition.

Second-quickest in Practice 2 was West Pro-Am entrant Kenny Murillo, who set the pace in Friday’s opening session in the No. 34 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Murillo fell 0.225 seconds short of topping both practice segments and was the only driver except Wilson to dip under the 1-minute 18s barrier in the second bout of running.

Gregory Liefooghe ran third-quickest in the No. 19 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW on a 1:18.035, while Matt Travis placed fourth in the No. 47 Nolasport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport.

In fifth and sixth were the Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche and the Ramsey Racing/EXR Team by Premat Mercedes that had former Audi LMP1 driver Alexandre Premat setting the times.

Premat narrowly lapped ahead of the Am-class points leading Panoz Avenazzo GT4 driven by Matthew Keegan, the pair separated by just 0.009 seconds.

Second practice ran without incident, with all nineteen cars managing to bank at least 20 laps in the final on-track opportunity before qualifying.

The back-to-back timed sessions to determine the grids for this weekend’s pair of Rose Cup Races get underway tomorrow at 9:35 a.m. local time.

RESULTS: Practice 2