RS1’s Trent Hindman and Spencer Pumpelly completed a very strong drive through the field to claim their second victory of the weekend in the Fanatec GT World Challenge America Pro class at Sebring International Raceway, with Justin Rothberg and Robby Foley rising above the pressure to claim their first Pro-Am win as teammates.
Pro
Elliott Skeer started on the front row in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 992 GT3 R, managing the opening portion of the race wisely as he slotted behind Pro-Am entry Neil Verhagen.
The battle for the top spot truly began to heat up once RS1’s Hindman came down pit lane to hand over the No. 85 Porsche 992 GT3 R to teammate Pumpelly for the remaining 45 minutes of the race. Skeer made his way down pit lane a couple of laps later, with Adam Adelson taking the reins.
When returning to the track, Adelson took over the overall lead of the race, but Pumpelly began closing the gap quickly. Although he had some Pro-Am class traffic to make his way through first, Pumpelly was able to quickly clear the two-car buffer, and set his sights on Adelson ahead.
Pumpelly reeled him in with 25 minutes to go, and the two went side by side through Turn 3, with Pumpelly using the inside line to move up into the overall lead.
From there, Pumpelly grew his gap to over seven seconds and went on to secure RS1’s second victory of the weekend. Adam Adelson secured second place for Wright Motorsports, and Varun Choksey took the checkered flag in third place in the No. 28 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3.
RS1 also took home the SUPERFUEL Hard Charger Award after gaining five positions overall throughout the race.
“That was for the guys in the pit box,” said Spencer Pumpelly. “I can’t say thank you enough. Trent Hindman just set this car up perfectly for me, and my job was to try to come through the field to the front at the end. I cannot say enough about this team and our Team Owner, Justin. Everyone was a huge help this weekend, big thank you from me to everyone.”
Trent Hindman also echoed praise for his teammate.
“I mean, when is he not the right call?” he said. “Surprisingly, it’s the first time we’ve ever got the opportunity to co-drive a car together after having known each other for so long. That was an absolute pleasure. Big thanks to Justin, RS1, Porsche, and Jake Pederson for the opportunity. We’re still making the right steps every time we go out, and that’s not going to stop. I’m super grateful for these guys for keeping their heads down and continuing to dig for more.”
Pro-Am
Neil Verhagen started on the overall pole in the No. 38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3, and got to work on establishing a gap between himself and the remaining competitors as inter-class battles began to unfold behind. However, the team was handed a drive-through penalty for a start violation, drastically changing the running order as Verhagen came down the pits to serve the penalty.
Robby Foley moved up into first in class in the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, as Bryan Sellers also continued to make progress in the new No. 08 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
As pit stops and driver changes took place, Justin Rothberg took over from Robby Foley, and George Kurtz took over from Colin Braun in the No. 04 Crowdstrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3. The two drivers exited pit lane one after the other, and set off on an incredibly tight battle for first place in Pro-Am in the remaining portion of the race.
Scott Smithson, who was now behind the wheel of the Corvette, was running in third but spun in the final six minutes, dropping him out of the Top 3. This allowed ST Racing’s Samantha Tan to regroup and make a strong comeback to position herself in third.
The podium finishers were separated by less than a second as they crossed the finish line, with Rothberg claiming his first win in the championship alongside Turner Motorsports teammate Foley, accompanied by Kurtz and Braun in second place, and Tan and Verhagen in third.
Philip Ellis set the CrowdStrike Fastest Lap of the race with a time of 2m00.724s, but was forced to retire from the race following contact with a competitor.
Robby Foley, who is not only celebrating a win but also celebrating Turner Motorsport’s favorite holiday, exclaimed, “ It’s Cinco de Mayo, so we’re going to celebrate with tacos! Justin did a great job. He had a great GT America race this morning and he’s just been getting better each time he’s gotten in the car. We had a good car today and he did the hard work bringing it home with great pressure from George Kurtz.”
Justin Rothberg kept cool with reigning champion George Kurtz, who was in his mirrors until the very end; “We didn’t break yet! Turner Motorsport and Laticrete Racing gave us a great car. They worked hard last night. Today we sat pretty in the corners, had Kurtz right behind me, and we just kept it on and pulled through.”
Up next
The Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS field will return for rounds five and six at Circuit of The Americas from May 17-19.
