Turner Motorsport’s Justin Rothberg earned the weekend sweep in GT America powered by AWS Sunday morning (July 20) by leading flag-to-flag to win Race No. 2. It is Rothberg’s fifth win of the year.
“It’s a really awesome day,” Rothberg told SRO America’s Amanda Busick after the race. “It was a tough race. Memo [Gidley] was on me the whole time, but his tires started to fall off at the end. I got a chance to breakaway and it worked out well.”
Rothberg won by 4.922 seconds over SKI Autosports’ Memo Gidley. GMG Racing’s Kyle Washington was third, then Chouest Povoledo Racing’s Ross Chouest.
By virtue of having the fastest lap in Race No. 1 on Saturday, Rothberg started from pole in his BMW. Similar to Saturday, he was able to get a good job on Gidley. Meanwhile, Washington put the pressure on Gidley for third.
Eventually, Gidley was able to shake off Washington and ran Rothberg back down. Washington ended up eight seconds back.
Gidley tried his hardest, but was unable to get to the point where he could make a move on the BMW. Slowly but surely, Rothberg was able to pull away from Gidley’s Audi.
Further down the order, Racers Edge Motorsports’ Jason Bell was forced to retire from the race just past halfway due to his fire extinguisher going off in the car. The same thing happened in Race No. 1 Saturday, but this came without a crash.
In GT4, 89x Motorsports’ Michael Fitzpatrick started from pole in his Aston Martin. On the first lap, John Dean was able to get in front of his teammate/car owner and pulled away to a six-second lead.
Dean was running well, but pulled into the pits 18 minutes into the race with mechanical issues. That gave the lead and win to Fitzpatrick.
GT America powered by AWS: VIR Race No. 2 Results
Next up for GT America will be a trip to Road America in a month. Race No. 1 is scheduled for Aug. 16 at 2:10 p.m. ET. It will stream live on the GT World YouTube channel.
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.