Lewis and Wilkins dominate the first race in Utah
The Brian Herta Autosport’s pair of Michael Lewis and Mark Wilkins dominated the Pirelli World Challenge’s first race at Grantsville’s Utah Motorsports Campus. Lewis started from the pole position, led from lights to flag and claimed his third victory of the season. Wilkins followed him closely for most of the race until he lost contact while passing some backmarkers and eventually crossed the finishing line 2.6 seconds behind Lewis.
Championship leader RealTime Racing’s Ryan Eversley lost second place to Wilkins soon after the start and wasn’t able to keep the pace set by the two Hyundai cars; he was then forced to settle for third far behind the leaders.
Eversley’s new teammate Mason Filippi started from fourth on the grid, but lost two places during the opening lap to Michael Hurczyn and Matt Fassnacht. On lap 3, Fassnacht’s Audi RS3 LMS overtook Hurczyn’s Volkswagen Golf GTI for fourth and the latter continued having a close fight with Filippi for fifth; they ran abreast for long time until the pace of Filippi’s Honda Civic began to fade. Eventually RealTime’s new recruit dropped down the order and finished 10th.
Eversley has maintained the first position in the standings with 202 points, but Lewis has reduced his gap to nine points only; Wilkins is still third, 25 points off the leader.
The second race will start tomorrow at 1:00pm local time (21:00 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv.
