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| Incident right after the green flag in China Beach collects Bobby Childs |
The sports car course at Mid-Ohio has a sector referred to as "madness", and Monday evening's event for round four of the Ricmotech GT Challenge showed why.
GLTM
Bobby Childs was the top D2D qualifier in GTLM at P13, but this worked against him as F4H Racing driver William Laster was overly aggressive on the start and paid the price - but as he spun across the track he collected the 88, sending Bobby to the back of the field (P22) with an injured but still functional Ferrari 488. Fellow GTLM competitors David Paton and Chris Thorman were able to get through this incident unscathed, but each also ran into problems through the course of the 75 minute event; David retired early following a spin after contact that severely damaged the car, and Chris had a run-in with the 50 machine that saw both vehicles take damage but continue on.
In the end, Bobby fought back to 14th but was unable to hold off Robert Hartley and his new tires and finished in P15, and Chris Thorman brought his damaged Ferrari home in P17 - up 3 spots from qualifying. David Paton finished P38 due to the early retirement.
GTD
Brandon Whitworth qualified P6 to lead the D2D contingent in the GT Daytona class, but the team knew it would be an uphill battle against the Mercedes and Audi teams after the latest BoP change by iRacing. Jim List followed in P7, with Eric Violett in P8 to lock those three spots on the grid for the team. Jim was aggressive at the start working his way into the top 5, but picked up damage and slowly began to fade. Eric spent a good bit of the race in the top 5 as well, but got caught up in some GTLM traffic while battling for position and lost a couple spots.
The final finishing order for the GTD team was Brandon in P5, Eric in P7, and Jim in P8. Chad Parker had to skip this round due to illness.
Points
David Paton now sits in 6th in the GTLM championship, with Chris Thorman currently holding on to 8th. Due to a crash at Spa and an early exit at Belle Isle, Bobby Childs is well down the order in 16th. Brandon Whitworth leads the way for D2D in the GTD title fight in 5th, with Jim List right behind him in 6th. Eric Violett is currently 10th, with Chad Parker in 13th.
These points positions are provisional, as drop weeks have not yet been calculated.
