Team Multimatic Motorsports managed to get Pole with a time of 2:23.439 in the Grand Sport Class (GS) just ahead of CJ Wilson Racing’s No. 33 Porsche Cayman GT4. Another Ford, the No. 76 from Team C360R qualified 3rd followed by No. 9 Automatic Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage. 8 cars feature in the GS class but are very closely matched which will make this race a very interesting one in terms of strategy.
In the Street Tuner Class (ST) there will be 27 cars competing led by the Pole sitter in the No. 84 BMW 328i from Bimmer World Racing who posted a time of 2:31.459, 2nd place on the grid will be the Nissan Altima No. 44 of CRG-I Do Borrow followed by the Mazda MX-5 No. 34 of Alara Racing.
The difference from 1st to 26th on the grid from the ST class was less than 6 seconds which will make it extremely interesting to watch where there will be some real close racing. We have to remember that these cars have different strengths, some have more power and will go faster on the long COTA straights but others turn really well and tire degradation will be an important factor as well. About 8 seconds is going to be the difference from the leader in GS to the leader of ST so traffic will be a factor as well after around 20 laps into the race. Yellow flags will also be a factor where any lead will be taken away by a probable safety car period and the teams will try to use this as an advantage in their pit stop strategies as well…
