Kavana Cup Off to Strong Start

The first race of the new-for-2019 Kavana Cup for SRO Motorsports America was deemed a success last weekend at Circuit of the Americas.

A total of 19 drivers or driver combinations earned at least one of the requirements to qualify for the hefty season ending prize money being offered by Kavana Rum.

At the end of the chilly weekend in Texas, the driver pairing of Caesar Bacarella and Martin Fuentes, driving the Squadra Corse Garage Italia, led Blancpain GT World Challenge America teams in completing three required boxes to qualify for the Kavana Cup.

They earned a pole, a Fastest SHYFTER award and swept both rounds in their respective national class in the race for the $250,000 GT3 prize.

In Pirelli GT4 America SprintX competition, Matt Travis and Jason Hart dominated in their nolasport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport to earn two poles, two Fastest SHYFTER awards and swept both wins of the weekend in their quest for the $150,000 GT4 prize.

The TC America series found two drivers walk away with the most bragging rights toward the $100,000 TC prize.

Both Alain Lauziere in the Alphasonic Motorsport Audi and Nick Wittmer in the TechSport Racing Subaru earned two Fastest SHYFTER awards and swept both round wins in their respective classes for the weekend.

“I love sports car racing and I love rewarding success,” said Kavana Rum founder and chairman Josh Tolley. “Working with SRO to develop a challenging but certainly obtainable prize purse has been a pleasure.

“This is just the beginning, as we continue to develop our prize portfolio we look forward to putting money in the pockets of the world’s best GT drivers.”

The Kavana Cup is a performance-based award will feature an additional prize purse totaling $500,000 after completing a set of objectives including pole positions, fastest race laps, and weekend race win sweeps.

Drivers will need to complete the following tasks to win this prestigious award:

*Driver(s) must sweep each round of a race weekend at at least five events
*One of the weekend sweeps must be the season finale in Las Vegas
*Driver(s) must earn seven fastest laps of the race during the season
*Driver(s) must earn seven pole positions during the season

Drivers in Pirelli GT4 Sprint will get their first chance at adding their names to the list of Kavana Cup qualifiers this weekend at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg along with another opportunity for the TC America TCR drivers.