Fletcher Keeps Title Fight Alive; Claims Third Win of Season

Photo: Toyota

Jeremy Fletcher claimed his third Toyota GR Cup North America victory of the season after taking top honors in a damp-turned dry Saturday race at Road America.

He took his No. 22 Copeland Motorsports Toyota GR 86 Cup car across the line in the 40-minute race that ended under full-course caution for an incident involving Beltre Curtis and Malbec Ramos that is under post-race investigation.

Fletcher blasted into the lead on the previous restart after getting by Max Schweid on the outside that also saw the No. 15 TechSport Racing entry of Spike Kohlbecker come along.

Schweid ended up finishing fourth, behind the No. 2 RVA Graphics Motorsports by Speed Syndicate entry of Will Robusto, who completed the podium.

Ethan Goulart completed the top-five in the No. 72 BSI Racing entry.

The victory for Fletcher came after his car sustained a fire in testing on Thursday and resulted in a complete overnight rebuild.

Ramos, the only driver to gamble on wet-weather tires, jumped from 11th to the lead once the green came out on Lap 2 and opened up as much as a six-second lead until the track began to dry out in a mixed-condition race.

Schweid, with Fletcher in tow, passed Ramos for the lead on Lap 7 as the TechSport Racing driver dropped down the order.

An earlier incident between Robusto and Ethan Ayars, who were second and third early on, collided and dropped out of contention, although Robusto charged back up the order.

The race’s first full-course yellow came out for the No. 80 Copeland Motorsports entry of Paityn Feyen, which stopped at the Carousel, and initially set up a four-and-a-half-minute shootout to the finish until the race-ending yellow moments later.

The pole-sitting No. 42 TechSport entry of Parker Delong encountered an issue on the initial pace laps and pitted when the green flag was displayed and ultimately retired.

Race 2 takes the green at 12 p.m. CST on Sunday with live coverage on GRCup.com and 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