BRASELTON, Geo. — Forbush Performance’s Jules Caranta led flag-to-flag Thursday afternoon (Oct. 1) to win IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge Race No. 1 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. It is his first career victory in the series.
Caranta won by 11.781 seconds over GEBHARDT Intralogistics Motorsports’ Oscar Tunjo. Shopify Racing’s Travis Hill was third, followed by Forte Racing’s Brian Thienes and Riley Technologies’ Slade Stewart.
Caranta qualified on the pole Wednesday and battled on the first lap with GEBHARDT Intralogistics Motorsports’ Danny Soufi. After a lap or two, Caranta was able to drop Soufi and pulled away from the pack.
Further back, there was trouble between the two Toney Driver Development Ligier JS P325-Toyota drivers. Ari Balogh and Lincoln Day came together in turn 5. This contact ultimately cut Balogh’s left rear tire, resulting in a spin in turn 6.
Balogh was able to slowly resume, but the tire was all the way flat by that point. Not wanting to damage the car, Balogh ultimately pulled off. Day was judged responsible for the incident and was given a drive-through penalty.
A couple of laps later, Soufi’s run came to an end. His No. 11 lost power on the backstretch and rolled to a halt just before the chicane. Not only did this end his race, it also brought out the full course caution.
Soufi’s failure put Tunjo right up on Caranta’s rear wing. Similar to Soufi at the start, Tunjo could hang with Caranta for the first couple of laps. Then, he would slowly fall away.
Caranta had to avoid slower traffic over the final 20 minutes to take his first career VP Racing SportsCar Challenge victory. The win comes in his first sprint start in the series.
In GSX, RAFA Racing Team’s Westin Workman led the field to green in his Supra. Just by doing that, he officially clinched the 2026 GSX class championship.
Workman was more than a second faster than anyone else in class during qualifying Wednesday and parlayed that advantage into a good lead in the race. He was pulling away from CarBahn Motorsports with Peregrine Racing’s Courtney Crone by more than a half-second per lap.
When the yellow came out for Soufi’s issues, he was already 12 seconds ahead of Crone’s BMW. A couple of his competitors were on separate laps from him.
After the restart was more of the same. Workman drove away to take his 10th victory of the 2026 season.
Workman won by 21.842 seconds over Crone. Kingpin Racing’s Jon Brel was a lap down in third, followed by the Porsche of KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering’s Angus Rogers. Panam Motorsport’s Cecelia Rubelo was credited with fifth after lining up in the wrong column of the start of the race. That earned her a 10-second post-race time penalty and cost her a position.
IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge: Road Atlanta Race No. 1 Results
Race No. 2 for VP Racing SportsCar Challenge is scheduled for 8:25 a.m. ET Friday morning. The race will stream live on the IMSA Official YouTube channel and on Peacock.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email 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 Frontstretch 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.
A name and email address are required to post a comment. The email address is not publicly visible or shared. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated according to our comment policy.
Comments are listed in order from oldest to newest. Leave a comment