Sunday at Belle Isle in Detroit With Second-Place FinishThird podium of the year for No. 68 Porsche Cayman S and Hot Wheels®, InvoicePrep, Voodoo Ride and StopTechJack Baldwin and Team Hot Wheels™ returned to the Pirelli World Challenge podium Sunday in Detroit where the No. 68 Hot Wheels®/GTSport Racing/Napleton Porsche Cayman S team saw any shot at victory end with a race-ending yellow flag and a second-place finish.
After a fourth-place finish in Round 1 of the Detroit doubleheader on Saturday, Baldwin gridded second for Sunday’s finale and stayed in the lead battle throughout the 27-lap race. He was edged at the standing start by championship rival Peter Cunningham but later retook second with and award-winning pass in Turn 1 of the tight Belle Isle track.
“I like street racing and Detroit has always been my favorite circuit, they do a great job here,” said Baldwin, who earned the Invisible Glass Clean Pass of the Race award for the Turn 1 pass. “I got past Peter down into Turn 1 and then raced with Andy Lee. My hat is off to him, he did a great job, he was smart and he had a real good car. I really didn’t have anything for him. I had a couple of opportunities, but I couldn’t make them materialize.”
Lee scored the victory to sweep the Detroit weekend and take the GTS championship points lead with 832 points, just 10 points ahead of Cunningham. Baldwin also continues to factor into the championship mix and ranks a close third with 759 points.
Baldwin’s other 2012 podium appearances were a Long Beach victory in April and second at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca last month. He is also riding a five race streak of top-four finishes and the No. 68 Cayman has finished out of the top-five just once this season after the year’s first seven races.
The Belle Isle Pirelli World Challenge race will air on NBC Sports, July 7 at 5:00 p.m. EDT. Expect Baldwin to tune in to watch his own performance on one of his favorite tracks.
“I am pretty sure I have run every circuit here in Detroit, a couple downtown around the Renaissance Center, and then in the first year at Belle Isle in Trans-Am,” Baldwin said. “I drove in the Motor City 100 here for a couple of years and it was my favorite race. I was driving for the factory Chevy team, like the factory Cadillac in GT now, and it was great when I saw this race was coming back on the schedule. I almost won it with Hot Wheels back in the Trans-Am days so I was really hoping to grab the win today. I drove the Hot Wheels Camaro back then and drive the Hot Wheels Porsche Cayman now, so 20 years late it is kind of déjà vu all over again!”
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.
