Franco, Balzan Sweep Weekend in Dramatic Race 2

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Manny Franco and Alessandro Balzan claimed a sweep of the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS weekend with victory in a dramatic second race at Road America.

Franco overcame a 2.585-second post-race time penalty for a short pit stop to take the win over the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Eric Filgueiras following a late-race drive-through penalty for Madison Snow due to contact with the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 of Ashton Harrison.

It was just one part of a chaotic final ten minutes of the 90-minute contest, which saw the then-leading No. 94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3 of Chandler Hull slow on track on the restart with a suspected broken axle.

Hull took the green ahead of the No. 38 ST Racing BMW of Samantha Tan, who dropped back with an unspecified issue, handing the lead to Franco, who cruised to the win.

Tan, meanwhile, rebounded to take the Pro-Am class win alongside Neil Verhagen with a third place overall finish.

Seth Lucas nursed the No. 53 MDK Motorsports Porsche to fourth without a rear diffuser, ahead of the No. 91 DXDT Racing Mercedes of Jeff Burton, who completed the top-five overall and second in Pro-Am.

The No. 43 Bartone Bros Racing by RealTime Mercedes completed the Pro-Am class podium in sixth.

The race was turned upside down with 30 minutes to go when the then-leading No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes of George Kurtz was eliminated from the race after the No. 77 TR3 Racing Mercedes of Paul Kiebler rejoined in front of the overall race leader and the two cars made heavy contact in Turn 10.

Kurtz, who climbed from his car, and co-driver Colin Braun had dominated the race up until that point, with Braun having led from pole.

RESULTS: Race 2

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