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Acura Wins Mid-Ohio

Race start. [Photo by Jack Webster]

Race start. [Photo by Jack Webster]

By Jack Webster

It was a trying weekend for everyone, with just about every type of weather you could expect in Ohio in mid-May. It was cold and rainy on Friday, similar on Saturday and Sunday started off cold and damp, but the skies cleared right before the race started. With that weather change on Sunday just prior to the start of the race, everyone was experiencing a dry and warm track for the first time of the race meeting. That made grip a bit of a challenge for everyone and the key to success in this race was keeping your tires on the pavement, for if you got off the track you were done for, as the grassy surfaces at Mid-Ohio were completely saturated with water and you would quickly sink into the muck.

In the end, it was the Penske Acura DPi taking the overall win over the #77 and #55 Mazda entries of Mazda Team Joest (who had a pretty good weekend, taking pole, but once again falling just short of that elusive first victory). For Acura, it was their second victory in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with their first victory coming one year ago at this same circuit.

In GTLM, it was once again a hard-fought contest, with the Porsche 911 RSR of Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor taking first over the Antonio Garcia/Jan Magnussen Corvette C7.R, with the other Porsche 911 RSR rounding out the podium in third.

In GTD, Jack Hacksworth and Richard Heistrand took first with the AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, besting Acura and Lamborghini who rounded out the top three.

In LMP2, Matthew McMurry and Eric Lux took the top spot in their PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA over the only other car in this class.

Perhaps Laurens Vanthoor, co-driver of the GTLM winning Porsche 911 RSR, summed up the race the best when he said: “I think it was grueling conditions for everybody because the conditions were not as wet and a lot colder. So it was a bit of an unknown for all of us. But it showed that we did our good homework.”

After rain at every race weekend so this year, except for Long Beach, I am sure all the teams are hoping for a dry weekend at the next race at Belle Isle.

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