The Team Sweeps Wins in the Pro and Pro-Am Classes
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – The Kelly-Moss race team continued its dominance in Porsche Carrera Cup North America Presented by the Cayman Islands in Rounds 7 and 8 at Watkins Glen International. The team owned by husband and wife Andy Kilcoyne and Victoria Thomas brought eight Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race cars to the 3.4-mile, 11-turn track in the Finger Lakes region of New York state.
In the hands of Kay van Berlo, Riley Dickinson, Efrin Castro and Alan Metni, the team scored four 1-2 finishes in the 40-minute races for the all single-make series. The team missed only the Am class wins where, Mark Kvamme won for MDK Motorsports on Friday and Bill Smith took the honors for Topp Racing on Saturday.
The two Kelly-Moss drivers in the Pro class set themselves apart from the remainder of the field in their near-matching Racing for Children’s green-and-white 500-horsepower Porsches. Charging from pole position in both races, van Berlo (No. 3 Kelly-Moss Porsche) held onto the lead after pressure from teammate Dickinson (No. 53) as well as from second-row starters of Trenton Estep (No. 6 MDK Motorsports) and Parker Thompson (No. 9 JDX Racing) each day.
The Kelly-Moss train continued to roll in the Pro-Am class as well, where teammates Castro (No. 65) and Metni (No. 99) swapped their finishing positions between the two days. The two 2021 championship contenders chased each other with Metni taking the edge. On Saturday, Castro bettered his teammate to earn his third victory of the year. Metni also holds three wins.
The Am class was the only class which didn’t see the winner from Kelly-Moss. Kvamme (No. 43) added a fifth win to his 2022 total on Friday, with Smith piloting the No. 42 to victory lane for the first time this season on Saturday.
To the point: A perfect points weekend moved van Berlo to 199 markers, a margin of 47 over Thompson in the Pro class. With 127, Dickinson is 72 points behind. In the Pro-Am class, Castro’s victory has moved him into second place, 29 points behind Metni. Kvamme, with 172 points, is 33 markers ahead of John Goetz in Am. Kelly-Moss is 26 points ahead of JDX Racing in the entrant points.
Next Up: Rounds 9 and 10 will run as part of the Toronto Indy weekend on the Canadian street course, July 15-17.
Kay van Berlo, No. 3 Kelly Moss Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, Pro Class Winner: “A great weekend. We maximized points, which is great. … Not all weekends are like this. The second race was a little harder than the first race as we had a safety car in the middle. Especially early on, I had a little more pressure. As usual, I tried to get a good start and I pulled a little bit of a gap to Riley. Then the safety car came out and I knew I had to do it all over again. I managed the tires in the middle just in case we got another safety car, but when we didn’t, I began to push again so some good lap times at the end as well. The Kelly-Moss Road and Race guys did an excellent job with the car this weekend. Me and Riley have both been really quick, definitely a lot of credit to them. We are at the halfway point, a long way to go but we are looking good at this point. We will try to keep the momentum and keep going.”