Toney Driver Development double up on win and championship at Road America

The inaugural IMSA AirBNB Enduracne Challenge comes to an end at Road America. Toney Driver Development was able to capture both the race win and championship following the conclusion at Road America. Wyatt Brickacek shared the number 95 Ligier LMP3 with Lincoln Day. It marked Day’s first victory and Brickacek second endurance race victory the first since COTA. Teammates Garrett Grist and Ari Balogh come home in second. From pole Oscar Tunjo in his number 1 Gebhardt Motorsports entry built a lead of north of 24 seconds in the opening 15 laps prior to the minimum drive time of 40 minutes elapsing. The first major twist came as one of Tunjo’s and Valentino Catalano’s closest rivals Brian Thienes brought out the full course yellow. Thienes ran deep into the gravel trap in his 77 Forte Racing entry. He resumed and pitted for repairs loosing a couple laps handing the car to co-driver Patrick Kujala. Once the race restarted a floodgate of cars hit the pits making driver changes. Tunjo stayed aboard the number 1 while TDR took the opportunity to swap out Day and Balogh for Brickacek and Grist. Brickacek was 8 seconds back of Tunjo but making ground. The race hit its climax with 56 minutes remaining. Tunjo ran off course into the gravel exiting the carousel turn 10 with a apparent mechanical failure which took the number 1 out before Catalano got a chance to drive. Teams still needed to make the second mandatory stop once the green flag flew again with 44 minutes left the pits got very busy. Brickacek, Grist, Liddy all pitted during the restart. This sent Jules Caranta in his second start to the lead attempting the overcut. However it did not work as Brickacek got by with Caranta emerging in second with Liddy and Grist getting past the French driver. With the stops complete both TDR drivers held the top two positions with Caranata passing the Forte entry for third.