WC: Finals weekend

[Tuna]

The last World Challenge race weekend will be at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah this coming weekend.

Johnny O'Connell will need a good weekend if he's going to win the driver's championship again. He has 1376 points and Skeen in an Audi has 1334 points.

Cadillac lost the manufacturer's points lead at the last races at Somona when the best Cadillac Racing could manage were a 5th and 8th by Johnny and an 8th and 10th by Andy.
Audi leads the manufacturer's championship 85 to 78 over Cadillac.

WC handed Cadillac a 75 pound weight reduction for the final race. Let's hope that puts them back into contention for a win instead of just enough to be in the middle of the field.

 

[Tuna]

First Practice 8:35 MDT

The GT cars are on the track for their first practice round and the first lap times are coming in. First practice may not show much as each driver and team will be trying different things and may be on different fuel loads. Live timing and scoring isn't sorting properly right now but it looks like the best lap time are in the low 1:49s for now. But I can't tell who is the fastest.

 

[Tuna]

Timing is finally sorting properly and a Bentley GT3 is fastest for now at 1:48.431. Andy is .8 off at 1:49.290. Still 15 minutes left in this practice session.

Johnny O has the driver's points lead going into this weekend with Skeen in second. If Johnny can finish ahead of Skeen in both races, we'll be champ again.
Cadillac is behind Audi in the manufacturer's points race so Cadillac racing needs to finish ahead of the highest finishing Audi by more than a couple of places to retake the manufactures's race.

 

[Tuna]

P1 is over. Fastest times are:

1. Smith - Bentley GT3 - 1:48.431
2. Dalziel - Porsche GT3 - 1:49.011
3. Pilgrim - Cadillac WC - 1:49.290
4. Leitzinger - Bentley GT3 - 1:49.675
5. O'Connell - Cadillac WC - 1:49.919
6. Palmer - Audi - 1:49.930
11. Skeen - Audi - 1:50.670

GT qualifying is at 1 PM Mountain today.
Race 1 is at 4:45 PM Mountain today.

 

[Tuna]

Spoiler: Race 1

Well, race 1 must have been something to watch. Johnny and Andy qualified 8th and 9th with the Bentley of Smith starting first and the Audi of Skeen starting second. Skeen and Audi were the big threat for Cadillac racing and the championships.

Johnny and Andy both got great starts and finished the first lap in 3rd and 4th. The Bentley got a bad start and fell back several places. Skeen appears to have broken the rear end on the start and didn't finish the race.

Smith, in the Bentley drove a great race and came back to win with Johnny hanging on for second and in a close battle with Leitzinger in another Bentley. Andy finished 4th. The closest Audi was a few more places in arrears.

Based on the provisional points, it looks like Johnny may have a lock on the driver's championship and Cadillac may be in the manufacturers points lead now.

Race 2 is tomorrow and I'll make a report after it is over.

 

[Tuna]

Spoiler: Race 2 and Championships

Cadillac Racing started 6th & 7th in todays season final race with Johnny ahead of Andy.
Both got good starts with Johnny moving up to 2nd by the end of lap1 with Andy moving up to fifth.

Johnny held on to 2nd for most of the race then faded over the last 5-6 laps to 7th.
Andy managed to move up every few laps, passing Johnny with a few laps to go and advancing to 3rd.

Thorne's McLaren finished first with Dalziel's Porsche in second. Andy brought his Cadillac home 3rd.

Before the race, Johnny had a commanding driver championship lead over Skeen and by finishing ahead of Skeen in this race, he is the 2014 Driver Champion.

Cadillac and Audi were tied for the Manufacturer Champion before the race. With Andy finishing 3rd and well ahead of the highest finishing Audi (8th), Cadillac took the Manufacturer Championship.

Yea HAA!!!!!

 

[tdyguy2k]

Way to go team Cadillac! Great championship wins despite the constant handicapping by WC. Congrats! ocker: