Five Full-Course Cautions Interrupt Action within the First Two Hours
By Mark Robinson
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – The championship-leading No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 DPi led an incident-filled first half of the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race Sunday at Watkins Glen International.
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Oliver Jarvis had the No. 60 Acura 0.351 seconds ahead of Renger van der Zande in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R at the three-hour mark. Tom Blomqvist started the race from the first position in the No. 60 Acura after winning the Motul Pole Award on Friday. Jarvis hopped into the car during a pit stop two and a half hours in and took the overall and Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class lead when Ricky Taylor stopped for fuel and tires in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura some 10 minutes before the halfway point.
A total of 48 cars started the race – the most at Watkins Glen since 2014. Other class leaders after three hours were: Anders Fjordbach in the No. 20 High Class Racing ORECA LMP2 07 in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2); Nolan Siegel in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier JS P320 in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3); Augusto Farfus in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 in GTD PRO; and Jordan Pepper in the No. 70 inception racing McLaren 570S GT3 in GT Daytona.
Blomqvist dodged disaster less than 15 minutes after the start of the race, narrowly avoiding the spinning No. 7 Forty7 Motorsports Duqueine D08 in Turn 1 while working through lapped traffic. The spin and ensuing wall contact by the No. 7 LMP3 entry driven by Anthony Mantella brought out the first of what would be five full-course cautions during the first two hours of the race. Two of the more notable yellows were also the result of incidents involving LMP3 machines.
A little more than an hour into the race, the No. 6 Muehlner Motorsports America Duqueine began smoking heavily with flames pouring from the rear of the car as Dillon Machavern pulled it off course and exited the car quickly unharmed.
Ten minutes after racing restarted from that caution, the yellow flag waved again when the No. 13 AWA Duqueine made hard contact with the inside wall in Turn 1. The car sustained significant damage but driver Lars Kern climbed from the wreckage on his own.
The seventh event of the WeatherTech Championship season, the Sahlen’s Six Hours also serves as the third of four rounds in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. Points separate from the season-long title are presented at designated junctures of the endurance events in each class. At Watkins Glen, the Michelin Endurance Cup points are earned at the three- and six-hour marks.
With the points awarded at the halfway mark Sunday, the Michelin Endurance Cup leaders were: a tie between the No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura and No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Cadillac in DPi; the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA in LMP2; a tie between the No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier and No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier in LMP3; the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C8.R GTD in GTD PRO; and the No. 70 inception racing McLaren in GTD.