Smooge Racing’s Corey Lewis was able to run down and take the overall lead from ACI Motorsports’ Curt Swearingin with 15 minutes to go Saturday morning (Oct. 5). From there, Lewis pulled away to win Pirelli GT4 America SprintX Race No. 1 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with teammate Tyler Gonzalez. It is Gonzalez’s second win of the year and Lewis’ first.
Lewis and Gonzalez’s margin of victory was 5.172 seconds over Random Vandals Racing’s Kevin Boehm and Kenton Koch. Rennsport One’s John Capestro-Dubets and Eric Filgueiras were third, then Precision Racing LA’s Terry Borcheller and Ryan Eversley. VPX Motorsports’ Danny Dyszelski and Cayden Goodridge were fifth.
The top-three finishers were the top-three teams in the Silver class. AutoTechnic Racing’s Zac Anderson and Colin Garrett were fourth, while The Heart of Racing’s Hannah Greenemeier and Hannah Grisham were fifth.
RENNtech Motorsports’ Matheus Leist started from the overall pole in his Mercedes, but his time at the front was short-lived. ACI Motorsports’ Kay van Berlo swept into the lead on the first lap.
Leist was able to keep up with van Berlo and once the mid-race stops started, he was able to move back in on the Porsche racer for the lead. The pass was unable to be made before the pit stops.
Once the stops were complete, Swearingin ended up in the overall lead with Auriemma giving chase. It didn’t take long for Swearingin to open up a decent advantage over the Mercedes.
Further back, the Pro-Am championship was decided in favor of ACI Motorsports when The Heart of Racing ran into two separate problems. First, the team’s pit stop to switch from Roman DeAngelis to Gray Newell was more than a second under the 108-second minimum pit lane delta. That resulted in a drive-through penalty.
Before Newell could serve the penalty, he cut his right rear tire, forcing him to limp to pit lane to get it changed. Once everything was said and done, Newell was nearly at the rear of the field. The team would ultimately finish 25th overall.
While Swearingin was able to pull away from Auriemma, he was no match for Lewis. Lewis was able to run down Swearingin for the overall lead in a hurry. It was such that Swearingin didn’t really put up much of a fight.
However, the Porsche started to drop down the order. That brought Eversley into the picture in his Supra. Eversley ran down Swearingin from multiple seconds behind and made the pass exiting the infield with two minutes to go to take the lead.
From there, Eversley pulled away to claim Precision Racing LA’s first class victory in fourth overall.
Borcheller and Eversley’s margin of victory was 4.498 seconds over Swearingin and van Berlo. Rotek Racing’s Isaac Sherman and Myles Rowe were third in their Pirelli GT4 America SprintX debut. Auriemma and Leist were fourth, then Random Vandals Racing’s Sam Craven and Josh Green.
Smooge Racing’s Tyler Gonzalez started on the Silver pole in third overall. Gonzalez was able to move up to second overall on the second lap and gave chase to van Berlo.
Further back, AutoTechnic Racing’s Colin Garrett was forced to start in the pit lane. That came as a result of an substantial avoidable contact penalty at Barber Park last month. Anderson got into van Berlo on the first lap of Race No. 2 and created a multi-car crash.
At the time, Anderson was given a stop and 90-second hold penalty that put him a lap down and change. The penalty was expanded to force the team to start Race No. 1 from the rear. Garrett got up to 18th overall before the mid-race pit stops, but that only put him sixth in class.
Once Anderson got in the car, he was able to continue moving forward. He would eventually finish 10th overall, but he was over 30 seconds behind the next car in class.
Lewis got into the car with a multiple-second gap over Filguerias. He didn’t concern himself with his classmates as he had the speed to progress.
Lewis made short work of Auriemma for second overall, then ran down Swearingin for the overall lead. The battle was very short as the GearWrench Toyota GR Supra GT4 Evo took the lead with ease. From there, Lewis held on to take the overall win.
Boehm and Koch’s second-place finish means that they are only two points between Capestro-Dubets and Filgueiras for the Silver championship. Whichever team finishes higher on Sunday will take the honors.
In Am, Rotek Racing’s Robb Holland started on the class pole in 11th overall. Holland was able to move up one place early on, but mainly spent his time in the car opening up the gap on the rest of the class.
Holland pitted from ninth overall to hand over to Jaden Lander, but the second half of the race was more of the same. Lander was able to hold station to earn his and Holland’s fourth win of the year and take the points lead in the process.
Holland and Lander’s margin of victory was 18.921 seconds over KRUGSPEED’s Kevin Conway and Anthony Geraci. Random Vandals Racing’s Michael Kanisczak and Kris Wilson were third, then Carrus Callus Raceteam’s BMW for Nick Shanny and Chris Walsh were a lap down in fourth, while NOLAsport’s Lee Carpentier and David Peterman were fifth.
Pirelli GT4 America SprintX: Indianapolis Race No. 1 Results
The final Pirelli GT4 America SprintX race of the year is scheduled for 10:35 a.m. ET Sunday morning. The race will stream live on both the GT World YouTube channel and on SpeedSport1.
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.