My first time racing at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca was last weekend in the High Point University Mercedes-AMG GT4 with Riley Motorsports. This was the second to last race of the season. First of all, I absolutely love this track! I was telling a veteran racer about the first time I came down the corkscrew and how much I loved it. I think he was waiting for a punch line and looked at me like I had three heads haha! I don’t know what it is, but the racing at that track was so much fun to me.
In practice my co driver, Jim Cox, and I were still learning the track while also trying to make adjustments to the car. We were able to drive iRacing on a SimCraft Apex 3 beforehand, so once I got there, it was like I had already been racing there for years.
Jim ended up qualifying 17th on Saturday morning, to start the race later that day. Once the race started, Jim was able to work his way up through the field and was consistently staying above the top 15. About 40 minutes into the 2-hour race, there was a caution. We pulled Jim in to do a driver change to me, as well as fuel and four Michelins. Riley Motorsports did such a great job on that pit stop, we moved up about 5 positions in that one stop from a quick tire change! I went out in 8th place. Once we went back green, I slowly worked my way up to the lead. We were leading the race for about half an hour. We were hoping another caution would come out towards the end for us to pit, but no caution ever came out, so we had to do a splash and dash under a green flag. We kept those same Michelins on, and they held up great all the way through the 1 hour 20 minute stint I was out there – especially for Laguna. Once we came back out, we were 5th. I held that position for the remainder of the race where we finished.
Even though it wasn’t a podium or a win, I am pretty happy about the result and the fact that we proved we could lead the race at a track we’ve never been to. I am looking forward to the last race of the season at Petit Le Mans, where I’ll be doing double duty in the Mercedes-AMG, and the Ligier JS P3. A huge thanks to High Point University, Riley Motorsports, Jim Cox, and SimCraft/iRacing for all of the support for this race and being the reason we performed so well.
