Kohlbecker Extends Points Lead With Saturday Barber Win

Photo: James Armas/TRD

Spike Kohlbecker extended his points lead with victory in the opening Toyota GR Cup North America race of the weekend at Barber Motorsports Park.

The TechSport Racing driver scored a flag-to-flag win in the 45-minute contest, finishing 0.942 seconds ahead of teammate Parker DeLong, who made a crucial last-lap pass on  Jeremy Fletcher for second.

It came after a late-race full course caution for an incident between Carter Wilson and Alcyr Araujo that beached the Legends class driver and set up a three-minute shootout to the finish.

While having started from pole, title rival Fletcher, in the No. 22 Copeland Motorsports Toyota GR 86 Cup car, was promoted to the front row as second-place qualifier DeLong was demoted to third.

Fletcher, however, was unable to capitalize on track position and slotted in behind Kohlbecker, who controlled the race en route to his sixth victory of the season and first since the first race of the weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

Kohlbecker provisionally now holds a 23-point lead with only three races to go.

Fletcher had to settle for third place on Saturday, ahead of RVA Graphics by Speed Syndicate driver Max Schweid and Will Robusto, who completed the top-five after an impressive charge from deep in the field after having contact with two other cars early in the running.

The No. 11 Speed Syndicate entry of Garrett Manes was handed a ten-second post-race penalty for incident responsibility with teammate Robusto, dropping him from sixth to 17th.

Ethan Ayars also got into Robusto in the opening laps and but was given a more severe in-race drive-through penalty and ended up 15th.

Ethan Goulart finished sixth, ahead of Malbec Ramos, Amilio DiLauro, Michael Edwards and Ryan Power, who completed the top-ten.

Race 2 is set for a 10:25 a.m. CST start 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