Heitkotter doubles up in World Challenge GT at Utah
Bryan Heitkotter made it a double victory in Pirelli World Challenge at Utah Motorsport Campus, leading from start to finish ahead of Adderley Fong’s Bentley.
#05 Always Evolving Racing Nissan GT-R-GT 3: Bryan Heitkotter
Melissa Sinclair
With polesitter Michael Lewis’s Porsche 911 zapped by Heitkotter at the rolling start, Fong held third ahead of the aggressive Patrick Long (Porsche) and Ryan Eversley (Acura).
Lewis slipped to fourth on lap two, by which time Heitkotter – who scored his first victory in the series on Saturday – pulled out a 2sec lead over Fong and title-contender Long.
Fong quickly carved into Heitkotter’s lead, and was right on his tail by half distance, before Long made it a three-way fight. But despite traffic causing the gaps to ebb and flow, the top positions remained static despite Long’s best efforts late on.
Behind Lewis, Eversley went off with 13 minutes remaining due to a suspension failure caused by vigorous use of UMC's curbs, which promoted Jon Fogarty’s Gainsco machine as first McLaren home in fifth, ahead of Michael Cooper (Cadillac), Colin Thompson (McLaren) and the guesting Craig Dolby (Nissan).
Points leader Alvaro Parente – who scored zero points after a crash on Saturday – started down in 17th but surged through to 12th in his K-PAX McLaren over the opening laps. He then got stuck behind Johnny O’Connell’s Cadillac, however, and was forced to settle for 11th.
Frankie Montecalvo was on his way to GTA honors in his Mercedes SLS, but a late-race spin handed the win to the Ferrari of Martin Fuentes – although he was only 0.2s ahead of Michael Schein's Porsche at the finish.
While action at the front of the field was mostly static, there was a great battle for GT Cup, as Alex Udell and Sloan Urry mugged longtime leader McKay Snow.
Udell won, as Urry was forced to retire with a fuel-pressure problem with six minutes remaining.
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