On Wednesday afternoon, the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge team took on Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56-mile road course for the first of two scheduled practice sessions. While others struggled at times, GMG Racing’s Andrew Davis got his new Audi R8 LMS GT4 up to speed quickly. 19 minutes into the one hour session, Davis turned in a lap of 115.867 seconds (110.610 mph). That time held up to be the fastest overall lap of the session, but just barely.
Davis’ lap was a mere five-thousandths of a second faster than defending Grand Sport champion Dillon Machavern in Rennsport One’s No. 28 Porsche. Stevan McAleer was third fastest, but more than half a second behind the lead duo. VOLT Racing’s Trent Hindman was fourth quickest, while Murillo Racing’s Eric Foss was fifth.
Multimatic Motorsports’ Austin Cindric was sixth fastest, followed by Al Carter in the Stoner Car Care Aston Martin. Chad McCumbee was eighth quickest, while Kris Wilson and Spencer Pumpelly rounded out the top 10.
While Wilson was able to get the No. 3 Winward Racing/HTP Motorsport in the top 10 overall, teammate Craig Lyons had a tough go. Late in the session, Lyons went off-course exiting the Kink and crashed his Mercedes-AMG GT4. As of this writing, the Winward Racing/HTP Motorsport crew is attempting to fix the left side of the No. 3 Mercedes. A collection of discarded parts sits behind the team’s garage stall.
In TCR, Murillo Racing’s Justin Piscitell was quickest with a lap of 120.822 seconds (106.073 mph) in his Audi RS 3 LMS Club Sport. That lap was four-tenths of a second faster than C360R’s Pierre Kleinubing. Britt Casey Jr. was another 1.2 seconds further back in third.
Street Tuner saw MINI JCW Team’s Mat Pombo quickest with a lap of 124.463 seconds (102.970 mph), a lap nine-tenths of a second faster than any ST car at the Roar test. The lap was half a second faster than BimmerWorld Racing’s Devin Jones. Mark Pombo was third quickest in the No. 52 MINI.
CTSC teams have one more practice session on Wednesday. It starts at 3:45 p.m. and is scheduled to run for 45 minutes.
About the author
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
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