The Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Cup North America made its debut this past weekend at Sonoma Raceway as part of SRO Motorsports America's opening weekend with 31 cars, surpassing expectations and pleasing the racers and those behind the series as well.
The #84 Atlanta Speedwerks, which started its fifth IMSA MPC weekend in succession from the front row of the grid, lost track position at the very start of the race, but an impressive fightback by Brian Henderson during his opening stint, plus issues for nearest rival Bryan Herta Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian meant the #84 Honda Civic Type-R was comfortably in the lead following the first round of pit stops.
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A late-race caution to extract the VGMC Racing, LLC Honda (#88) from the gravel trap however eradicated Henderson and teammate Robert Noaker’s near four-second lead with less than 15 minutes of the race left to run. The full course yellow also brought Copeland Motorsports (#27) and Road Shagger Racing (#61), both of which had been squabbling for 2
#94: Atlanta Speedwerks Honda Civic FK7 TCR, TCR: Ryan Eversley, winner
Atlanta Speedwerks has taken its first win of the season in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season in an incident-packed four-hour event at Watkins Glen that also saw the fight for 2
nd place go down to the wire between five cars.
The Georgian team’s #94 Honda Civic Type-R had qualified on the front row alongside the sister #84 entry, but had already fallen to 4
th by the end of the first lap when the Honda’s four-cylinder engine was almost immediately struck with boost issues. The problem compounded Todd Lamb’s opening stint and was only rectified during the car’s first pit stop, a delay that ended up dropped the #94 out of the TCR top 10 altogether.
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