Jens Klingmann and Bret Curtis in the #96 Turner Motorsport M6 GT3 won the GTD class in the IMSA WeatherTech Series race at Circuit of the Americas. It was their second win of the season. Klingmann came in third in class for the final pit stop; quick work by the Turner team propelled him into first. He held on for a convincing win, finishing over fifteen seconds ahead of the second place car. The #97 Turner M6, piloted by Michael Marsal and Markus Palttala, was set back after it was hit by another car while running fourth. It eventually finished fourteenth in class.
Klingmann said, “It was just a perfect day and I am super happy. It was a great car and my first race here in Austin. I felt good and Bret, for whom this is a home race, did a great job with no mistakes. The only big problem was the heat and that my drink bottle didn’t work at all for my last stint, which was about an hour long. But I had the adrenaline by leading, so I tried not to think about it. I think we can perhaps be in the top three in the championship, but we just want to win races for Turner Motorsport and BMW Motorsport.”
Dirk Werner and Bill Auberlen in the #25 BMW Team RLL M6 GTLM finished fourth in the GTLM class. Werner overcame an early-race drive through penalty for contact with the #66 Ford GT. He and teammate Lucas Luhr in car #100 were running fifth and sixth with twenty minutes remaining after Toni Vilander had to pit the leading Ferrari with electrical issues. Werner was able to get by the #4 Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner Corvette to move up to fourth, while Luhr was passed by the #66 Ford and moved back to seventh, where he finished in the car he shared with John Edwards. The #912 Porsche driven by Earl Bamber and Fred Makowiecki won the class ahead of Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy in Porsche #911. Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia were third in Corvette #3.
The series concludes with the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta on October 1.
On Friday at COTA Derek Jones and Mat Pombo in the #73 Mini finished sixth in the ST class in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race. The ST win went to Jeff Mosing and Eric Foss in a Porsche Cayman. The best BMW finisher in ST was the fifteenth-place BimmerWorld F30 328i driven by Jerry Kaufman and Kyle Tilley. The #84 BimmerWorld 328i, placed on the pole by Tyler Cooke, fell back early with an electrical problem. Another BMW competitor, Michael Johnson in the JDC-Miller Motorsports 228i, was set back early in the race with fuel pump failure. The CTSCC series finale will be run at Road Atlanta on September 30, the day before the Petit Le Mans race.—Brian S. Morgan
