{"id":13207,"date":"2012-08-22T19:30:17","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T19:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=13207"},"modified":"2012-08-22T19:30:17","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T19:30:17","slug":"wright-motorsports-finishes-1-2-3-4-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/wright-motorsports-finishes-1-2-3-4-on-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Wright Motorsports Finishes 1-2-3-4 on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnston and Snow are 1-2 Again on Saturday<\/strong>\u00a0In IMSA GT3 Cup Action at Road America<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

ELKHART LAKE, Wis., Aug. 22 \u2014 Wright Motorsports had another record-setting weekend last Friday and Saturday at Road America in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama.\u00a0 The Batavia, Ohio-based team fielded the cars that finished in the top four positions in Round 10 of the series on Friday, as Sean Johnston won, Madison Snow finished second, Fernando Pe\u00f1a placed third and Kasey Kuhlman finished fourth. Johnston and Snow finished first and second again on Saturday in Round 11 of the 15-race series.<\/p>\n

Johnston, of Mt. Shasta, Calif., had a perfect weekend.\u00a0 He earned the BBS Pole for both 45-minute races and then led every lap of both of them with his Wright Motorsports No. 10 2012 Porsche 997 sponsored by Driscoll\u2019s Berries.\u00a0 He also set a new track record in qualifying and new race-lap records. The twin triumphs were the rookie\u2019s third and fourth career victories in the series. They helped him increase his lead in the driver point standings and helped Wright Motorsports increase its advantage in the team point standings.<\/p>\n

Starting and finishing second in both races was the team\u2019s other young gun, Madison Snow of Lehi, Utah, who drives the Universal Industrial Sales No. 62.\u00a0 Snow, who has three victories so far this year, challenged for the lead several times, showing that he\u2019s also knocking on the door for another victory. He\u2019s third in the current point standings after the excellent showing, which helped him close the point gap to second place.<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a, who qualified a second faster than his qualifying record set last year, was the third Wright Motorsports driver to earn a podium finish on Friday, as the Minneapolis-based driver finished third with his No. 16 Porsche sponsored by Colours, Inc. He\u2019s second in the point standings.<\/p>\n

Finishing fourth was the team\u2019s \u201clocal\u201d driver, Kasey Kuhlman of Cincinnati, in the Wright Motorsports No. 15 sponsored by Kuhlsport and the Motorsports Country Club of Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

The following day Kuhlman finished a solid fourth again, while Pe\u00f1a placed sixth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Mosport in July, Kasey began a completely different program in how he attacks the weekend,\u201d team owner John Wright said.\u00a0 \u201cIf he hadn\u2019t had a fuel system electrical malfunction at Mosport he would have recorded four top-five finishes in the last four races.<\/p>\n

\u201cFernando had another solid weekend too,\u201d Wright added.\u00a0 \u201cHe had a great Race 1, but on Race 2 he fought a brake bias issue.\u00a0 Once he adjusted for it, he was able to run times faster than the leaders at that point of the race to close his gap back up behind the third, fourth and fifth-running cars.\u00a0 It\u2019s too bad the race ended under yellow, because we would have had two Wright Motorsports cars battling for the last podium spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Baker of New York City finished 11th in both races in the top class, Platinum Cup, in a fifth Wright Motorsports Porsche 997.\u00a0 \u201cHis goal is to be in the top 10 in each race, and he was certainly very close,\u201d Wright noted. \u201cHe\u2019s setting personal lap time goals and achieving them.\u00a0 John has been very consistent this year, and his results are proving that. He\u2019s doing a great job this year as a Wright Motorsports driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright Motorsports also fielded two Porsches in the Gold Cup class here. Mitch Landry of Lake Charles, La., was very consistent, placing sixth in that class in both races with the VersaCrane car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition in the Gold Cup class is very close this year, but Mitch is doing a great job managing his races,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

Snow\u2019s mother, Melanie Snow of Pleasant Grove, Utah, showed good speed with her Gold Cup car in qualifying and practice, but in Race 1 she unfortunately was caught out in a lap one, multi-car accident that forced her out of the race.\u00a0 It also forced her to start Race 2 from the back of the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Race 2 Melanie drove a great race, advanced through the field and was passing two cars battling for fourth and fifth place,\u201d Wright said.\u00a0 \u201cOne of those cars made contact with hers and triggered a three-car accident at the end of the race. She suffered minor injuries in the accident and was treated and released at a local hospital, but she is already looking forward to her next race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only two more events remain this year: Sept. 13-15 at VIRginia International Raceway in Alton, Va., and Oct. 17-20 at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga.<\/p>\n

Unofficially Johnston leads the driver point standings following Road America with 198 points.\u00a0 Pe\u00f1a is second with 162 and Madison Snow is third with 153. Kuhlman is in sixth place in the driver point standings, just eight points out of fifth.<\/p>\n

Wright Motorsports leads the team standings with 206 points.\u00a0 Its cars run under the Snow Racing\/Wright Motorsports banner hold second place in the team standings with 172 points, again unofficially.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was another outstanding weekend,\u201d Wright concluded.\u00a0 \u201cThe work the crew is putting forth with their car preparation and the way the team has gelled is very satisfying, and shows the strength of our program. The drivers are also putting strong efforts in both on and off the track, and the results show that. Having Pat Long on board as our driver coach is another good resource our team offers its drivers. They are setting personal goals and they are achieving them.\u00a0 We hope to continue our success at the last four races of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series\u2019 Web site is at imsachallenge.com<\/a>. Additional information is on the team\u2019s Web site at wrightmotorsports.com<\/a> and its Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Post-event quotes follow:<\/p>\n

Sean Johnston: “To leave\u00a0Road America having secured two pole positions, two race wins, and both the qualifying and race-lap track records all in a single weekend is a true\u00a0testament to Wright Motorsports and the incredible job they do. It was a great weekend for me, Wright Motorsports and Driscoll’s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madison Snow: \u201cI started second on Friday and got a good run on the start.\u00a0 I was almost next to Sean but he took the corner and then coming out I was able to get next to him again into Turn 3, but not enough to make the pass. I tried again exiting Turn 6 and into 7 but the room just wasn’t there. The second race was pretty much the same as the first one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fernando Pe\u00f1a: \u201cWright Motorsports took five out of the six podium positions available this weekend for the Platinum class. Their knowledge and expertise continues being overwhelming. Now the top three spots in points for the Platinum class are Wright Motorsports cars. They are the team to beat. They continue being perfect. The cars are magic to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasey Kuhlman: \u201cI had a good run on Friday with no major mistakes after escaping the first-lap carnage in Turn 3.\u00a0 The long caution cost me valuable laps that I could have used to my advantage, since my car was getting better as the race went on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a really fun race on Saturday, with great, close action and a strong P4 finish. \u00a0I think I could have gotten on the podium if we had finished under green. \u00a0I was right behind Sloan Urry with 6 minutes to go and really pressuring him. \u00a0It was a blast! This was my best points weekend so far this season and I closed a big gap to the guys ahead of me in the points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melanie Snow: \u201cIt was a real tough week for me. I got caught up in a tiny bump in the first race that took out my radiators, and then had the massive crash in the second race. I want to thank all the IMSA officials, safety workers and medical staff. They really did a wonderful job.<\/p>\n

\u201cPorsche builds a tough, safe car.\u201d<\/p>\n

About Wright Motorsports:
\nWright Motorsports is the premier Porsche tuning facility in Ohio and a multi-series, international racing team known for superb car preparation, expert race strategy and driver development. Located in Batavia, near Cincinnati, it is owned and directed by John Wright, a certified Porsche factory-trained technician. As a crew chief Wright has played a key role in winning six driver and five team championships in World Challenge, IMSA (ALMS) and the Grand-Am Rolex Series. In 2012 Wright Motorsports is fielding multiple entries in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge, servicing its customers who compete in other series and club-racing events, and providing race car-quality preparation for its customers\u2019 high-performance street cars. For more information see WrightMotorsports.com on the Internet and follow it on Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n

About the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama:
\nThe IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama is one of three official development series sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). It is also the largest one-make series in North America. The Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama produces intense, exciting competition for semi-professional drivers alongside some of the most promising career-minded GT drivers in one of the world\u2019s most successful and iconic race cars, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, and on some of North America\u2019s most hallowed road racing circuits. To learn more about the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama visit imsachallenge.com<\/a> on the Web, on Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnston and Snow are 1-2 Again on Saturday\u00a0In IMSA GT3 Cup Action at Road America ELKHART LAKE, Wis., Aug. 22 \u2014 Wright Motorsports had another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-racing-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13210,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions\/13210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}