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Aschenbach Wins First At Road America

The CKS Autosport Camaro driven by Eric Curran and Lawson Aschenbach race to the win at Road America.  [John Wiedemann Photo]

 

Elkhart Lake, WI – Lawson Aschenbach scored a surprising first series victory in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race at Road America.

While Aschenbach was always in the mix and led multiple times throughout the race including up until seven minutes to go, the fastest car at the end was the Subaru driven by Pierre Kleinubing.

With ten minutes left to run the race, Kleinubing made his assault on the front runners, first picking off the Porsche of Matt Plumb for second place and then setting sail to pressure leader Aschenbach.

The Subaru driver battled side by side for lead with the Camaro and then took over the point with an inside pass through turn seven. After grabbing the lead, Kleinubing pulled away to 1.2 second lead with seven minutes to go.

The complexion of the race changed when Plumb, while running in the top five, suffered a mechanical issue in turn eight sending the Rum Bum Porsche into the tire barrier and bringing out a full course caution.

The safety team worked quickly to remove the damaged car from the sand trap allowing the competitors one final lap to settle the race.

Early in the lap, the only action occurred when Robin Liddell took over third place racing into turn six, passing Trent Hindman in his BMW. But up front Klienubing in his Suabru stretched out his lead over second place Aschenbach.

But through turn fourteen, an electrical issue on the Subaru slowed Klienubing’s drive out of the turn and climb up the hill to the checkers allowing Aschenbach to race past for the victory as Kleinubing rolled over the finish line just after Liddell in third place.

“It’s better to be lucky than good sometimes,” exclaimed Aschenbach while he displayed a “lucky dog” drawing he received from a fan. “To get a win finally and get the monkey off our back. Anyway we can get it we’ll take it.”

In the Street Tuner, Terry Borcheller in the BMW 128i, held off Wayne Nonnamaker’s Porsche Cayman to take his first win of the season.

“It’s been coming together for a number of races,” said Borcheller, the 2013 ST champion. “The car was flawless, it was so good.”

The Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge series returns to action at Virginia International Raceway on August 31st with three races to go in the 2014 season.

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