VIR - Paul Miller races back to 1st, Korthoff/Preston finally break through

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Photo Credit - paulmillerracing.com


The last sprint race of the IMSA season concluded down at Virginia International Raceway, with the GT-only field producing a pair of wins for two teams that will enjoy the sweet taste of victory for a while in the aftermath.

In GTD Pro, Madison Snow and Brian Sellers of the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW finally broke through to claim their first victory of the season and their first as a Pro outfit. A year after blowing away the GTD competition with 5 overall wins, 7 trips to the podium and a championship in 2023, PMR's best result to this point this season had been a 3rd place finish in the 24 Hours of Daytona. Snow and Sellers were fast all weekend with a P1 finish in FP1 and starting from pole position in the race. They kept that pace throughout the 2 hour and 40 minutes, with the biggest challenges coming from the Heart of Racing and the No. 64 Ford GT3. More on those guys in a bit.

With just two races to go in the year, and both being endurance rounds, Snow and Sellers currently sit 5th overall in the championship standings, just 223 points behind AO Racing in first, meaning they still have more than a chance to pull off the Pfaff and win a title in GTD and then GTD Pro in back-to-back seasons.

Jumping over to GTD, and speaking of FINALLY breaking through, it was the No. 32 AMG of Korthoff/Preston Motorsports that navigated through the field to finish in 1st, claiming their first victory as a racing outfit in the WeatherTech Championship. Congrats to those guys who have been going at it for a few seasons now, and with the talent in the GTD category and oftentimes seeing 20+ cars going at it in the endurance rounds, it isn't easy to pull off wins with such a huge field of capable teams and drivers. Again, congratulations to the Korthoff/Preston team, and a special shout-out to one of the best liveries on the grid, it certainly deserves its spot on the top step *golf clap*.  

Other notes to touch on - 

The Ponies are finally sorting themselves out 

The first year of a new racecar is always going to come with growing pains, but it appears the Ford Mustangs might finally be turning the corner when it comes to producing real results on track. The pair of Multimatic Motorsport GT3s ran strong all day, with the No. 64 of Mike Rockenfeller and Harry Tincknell finishing 2nd behind Sellers and Snow, while the No. 65 crossed the line in P4, missing out on the podium 7ish seconds following the late yellow restart. In addition, the No. 55 of Proton secured pole for GTD, yet ultimately finished in P8 after Corey Lewis dipped his tires off track late in the action, falling multiple spots behind in the traffic. Regardless, it was a strong weekend for the Mustangs, let's see what they have in store for the six hours at Indy. 

GTD Pro Corvettes come back to Earth (a bit)

Also falling into the category of 'new car for 2024,' the Pratt-Miller Corvettes struggled for a majority of the day, ultimately ending with a last-two-in-class finish, with the No. 4 finishing 8th and the No. 3 finishing 29 laps down after going behind the wall for repairs. After nailing a line of pole positions in a row, and with their 1-2 finish at Mosport, the Vettes were building some good momentum after a slow start to the campaign, but the trip to VIR, a track they've absolutely dominated in recent history, will be one to forget. The No. 4 of Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner go into Indy sitting 190 points back of AO Racing in the title fight. 

A fitting end to the Inception McLaren

After running with the McLaren 720S for the last three years, Inception Racing is poised for a manufacturer change mid-season. Coming off their back-to-back podiums at Mosport and Road America there was reason to believe the Inception squad was putting a tough 2024 campaign behind them to finish the season strong - NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND. Not only did they blow an engine on lap 68 and DNF'd, word came out days earlier that they are set to move on from their 720S McLaren for the Ferrari 296, according to Sportscar365.com. That change will happen in time for Indy next month, which is a very rapid turnaround to pull off. For reasons currently unknown, it's one less McLaren we'll be seeing, and it leaves the No. 9 Pfaff as the only other 720S on track moving forward. 


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