GTSport/Porsche Napleton Racing Team Earns Third Top-Five Finish In Year’s First Four Races For Hot Wheels®, InvoicePrep, Voodoo Ride and StopTechJack Baldwin drove the No. 68 Hot Wheels®/GTSport/Porsche Napleton Racing (PNR) Cayman S to a fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Pirelli World Challenge Privacy Star Utah Grand Prix presented by Bondurant at Miller Motorsports Park. The finish was the third top-five showing in the year’s first four races for Baldwin and the new GTSport Sport/PNR Team Hot Wheels™ program.
Baldwin took the lead with another great standing start, a repeat of his winning move on the streets of Long Beach two weeks ago, edging pole-winner Peter Cunningham into the first corner. Baldwin led the opening races laps ahead of a tight train of cars that included Cunningham’s Acura, the Kias of Michael Galati and Colin Braun and Andy Lee’s Camaro.
“We had another great start, this Cayman just launches from the line, and I was able to get up front and lead the first few laps,” said Baldwin, who started on the outside front row. “But I quickly realized the extra weight we have now after the win was making it tough to keep any speed on the straights. I mixed it up with them as long as I could, and our Cayman was good today, just not quite good enough to win with what we have right now.”
Although he fell out of the top spot, Baldwin ran with the leaders for the entire race and even survived a late spin to score his second-best race result of the year.
“I was running tight with the guys, mixing it up with the Camaro, and I just looped it,” Baldwin said. “I kept it going, it was kind of a Danny Sullivan thing, but it put me a couple of seconds back in the final laps.”
Baldwin appeared to be headed for a fifth-place result, but picked up a spot on the race’s last lap when the Kias made contact battling for the lead and took Cunningham out in the melee. Lee slipped through for the win in the Camaro while Baldwin jumped to fourth just behind the Kias.In addition to the Long Beach win and Saturday’s fourth-place showing, Baldwin earned fifth and seventh place finishes in the season-opening doubleheader in St. Petersburg in March. The consistent early-season run has moved Baldwin firmly into the GTS championship picture in third place with 425 points. Cunningham is second with 437 points while points leader Justin Bell, who finished 10th in Utah, has 475 points.Baldwin once again praised the GTSport Racing/PNR team and crew.“This is one of the best group of guys I have ever worked with,” Baldwin said. “I would say that they do everything asked of them, but it never gets to that point. They know what needs to be done and just do it, and then do some more. We wouldn’t be where we are now without their non-stop efforts, no doubt about it. I just drive the great Cayman they prepare.”GTSport Sport/PNR Team Hot Wheels™ will keep the No. 68 Cayman out West to prepare for the next round of the Pirelli World Challenge at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in two weeks. The Cayman will return to the headquarters shop of lead team partner StopTech in Carson, Calif., where it also went through a full schedule of pre-race preparation between the Long Beach and Utah races.Race fans can tune in for tape delay television coverage of the Pirelli World Challenge on the NBC Sports Network all season. The Long Beach race airs today, Sunday, April 29, at 3 p.m. EDT/Noon PDT.The No. 68 Team Hot Wheels/GTSport/Porsche Napleton Racing Cayman S is also supported by Napleton Porsche Motorsports, BBS, Jamestown Fish Restaurant, RaceLink, SPEEDCOM Communications, TPC, AIM, RS683 and Schnorr Art.
