IMSA: Saturday Circuit of The Americas Notebook

GT Manufacturer Races To Be Decided At Road Atlanta

AUSTIN, TEXAS – The finish in the GTLM class at Circuit of The Americas made a tight manufacturers championship even tighter. Unofficially, the victory by the Viper SRT factory team put Dodge into a tie with Porsche.

Headed into the season finale at Petit Le Mans, Dodge and Porsche have an eight-point lead over Chevrolet and Ferrari, which means one of the two leaders will win the crown at the last race.

The scoring system awards 35 points for a victory, 32 for second, 30 for third, 28 for fourth and 26 for fifth. With only five manufacturers competing, neither Chevrolet nor Ferrari can gain enough points on the two leaders – barring the remote possibility their rivals fail to score any points at all by not running the minimum distance.

Porsche will once again hedge its bet with a three-car entry at Petit Le Mans. The Road Atlanta track is expected to be similar to COTA in terms of rewarding cars that have good high-speed downforce, which proved to be a strong suit for Porsche at COTA. The big difference? The Petit Le Mans is 10 hours and finishes in the dark, which often creates late-race suspense and errors.

In the GT Daytona category, Porsche unofficially took the lead in manufacturer points at COTA with a runner-up finish by Magnus Racing’s John Potter and Andy Lally. BMW trails by one point and Ferrari trails by two points.

Keating Wins Again At Home Track

Texan Ben Keating had a unique experience at last year’s American Le Mans Series race at COTA. Keating sells more Vipers than any other Dodge dealer at his Houston dealerships. But last year, he won the GTC class of the ALMS race at COTA driving a Porsche.

This year, Keating, who lives about two hours from COTA in Tomball, got his chance to drive a Viper. Co-driving under Viper Exchange sponsorship for the Riley Motorsports team, Keating got the win with Jeroen Bleekemolen, their second this season after breaking through at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

“This was really sweet," said Keating. “I felt a little odd last year being the number one Viper dealer in the world and winning in a Porsche."

Ganassi Team Breaks Streak at COTA

How long was the Chip Ganassi team’s winless streak? The team hasn’t won since the third round at Long Beach, quite a stretch for the team that won more prototype races and championships than any other in the GRAND-AM Rolex Series.

“We’ve had our ups and downs," said Scott Pruett. “Ganassi has been through a tough stretch. Ford has had to dig deep. I’ve been impressed with how they’ve dug in. This is new technology with the twin turbo EcoBoost V6 and they continue to keep working on it. (Co-driver) Memo (Rojas) did a great job today and the guys did a great job in the pits. We needed this shot of adrenaline."

Top Pro-Am Drivers In TUDOR Championship To Get Shot At Le Mans

At the only joint race with the FIA World Endurance Championship on its schedule this year, the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest announced a new program that will enable Pro-Am drivers to gain entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is a round in the WEC.

The new program will recognize Pro-Am drivers in the Prototype and GT Le Mans classes, starting in 2015. Each race the Jim Trueman award will be presented to the top finishing Pro-Am driver in the prototype category. The top finishing GTLM Pro-Am driver will receive the Bob Akin Award.

At the end of the season, the highest-finishing Trueman and Akin award winners for the season will receive recognition as the top Pro-Am driver in their respective classes. In addition, the Bob Akin Award season-long winner will earn an entry in the LM GTE class at Le Mans in 2016. The Jim Trueman Award season-long winner would be eligible to compete in the LM P2 class with a car registered in the appropriate ACO homologated category.