SRT Motorsports Doubles Up With GTLM Team, Driver Championships

No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR Wins Patrón Endurance Cup

Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 Breaks Through For GTD Win

Turner Motorsport, Cameron Claim GTD Championships

AIM Autosport Scores Patrón Endurance Cup In GTD

Team Falken Tire closed out one era of the Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda with a victory last season, and opened up a new era Saturday with a breakthrough victory in the first TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race at Road Atlanta with its No. 17 Porsche 911 RSR.

Meanwhile, SRT Motorsports won both team and driver championships in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class as Jonathan Bomarito, Rob Bell and Dominik Farnbacher nursed the No. 93 Dodge Viper SRT GTS-R to the inaugural TUDOR Championship team title. Kuno Wittmer drove the No. 91 Dodge Viper SRT GTS-R to the driver championship after sharing the No. 93 entry most of the season with Bomarito.

Bryan Sellers and Wolf Henzler repeated their 2013 triumph for Team Falken Tire in the final race for the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón, and were joined in this year’s victory by Marco Holzer. It wasn’t easy, however, as Henzler had to hold off a late-race charge from the No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR of Michael Christensen following a full-course caution.

“Before the restart, I asked and they said there were a couple of prototypes between us [and second place], so I thought maybe I’d be safe,” said Henzler, who beat Christensen to the stripe by a mere 0.937 seconds. “I had three laps and I was able to keep my pace and keep him behind. He never could really attack me, but he was close.”

The No. 93 Dodge Viper SRT GTS-R entered the race with a seven-point lead in the season-long team championship ahead of the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R. After Jan Magnussen was caught up in a pit-road incident two hours, 45 minutes into the race in the No. 3 Corvette, SRT Motorsports was suddenly in the catbird seat. But what appeared to be a rather smooth drive to the championship certainly was not as the team had to nurse a hot gearbox throughout much of the 10-hour race.

It was a sixth-place finish for the team and Bomarito, who entered the race with a share of the points lead with regular co-driver Wittmer. In a bid to increase its odds for a championship, Wittmer moved to the team’s No. 91 entry and secured the driver championship with a third-place finish in the car co-driven by Marc Goossens and reigning Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay.

“To be honest, I’m a bit upside down on emotions due to the fact that Jonathan can’t be sitting beside me,” said Wittmer. “He deserves it just as much as I do. We worked all season to be in this type of position to get a point lead. Strategically we got split for Petit, which makes sense, because one of us did win.”

The No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR driven by Christensen, Patrick Long and Earl Bamber finished second to win the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup team championship, while Christensen and Long won the Patrón Endurance Cup driver championship.

Porsche also won the manufacturer championship in the four-race endurance competition, which includes the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida and the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

Paul Miller Racing Audi Breaks Through For GTD Win; Cameron, Turner Motorsport Win Titles

Audi won its first TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race Saturday in the Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda with Paul Miller Racing breaking through for its first victory in the 10-hour endurance classic with drivers Christopher Haase, Matt Bell and Bryce Miller in the No. 48 Audi R8 LMS.

After winning a series-high four races in 2014, Turner Motorsport won the GT Daytona (GTD) team championship with Dane Cameron taking the driver title. Markus Palttala played an integral role in Turner Motorsport’s championship, sharing all four victories with Cameron, but missed the Brickyard Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway due to scheduling conflict.

“It’s just an amazing feeling to not only get my first sports car championship, but to get it in the inaugural year of the TUDOR Championship and be the first person is even more special,” said Cameron. “The last hour was probably the longest hour of my life. You just hear all kinds of crazy noises. They were counting me down about every 10 minutes. You wouldn’t believe how long 10 minutes could feel.”

The race came down to an intense final few minutes for the Paul Miller Racing team as Haase was forced to defend the No. 58 Dempsey Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Jan Heylen on a restart with seven minutes remaining. Haase beat Heylen to the stripe by 3.121 seconds for the race win.

“The partnership [with Audi] has been a successful one,” said Bryce Miller. “We’ve really enjoyed working with them. They’ve lent us a tremendous amount of support to accelerate our learning curve on the car going back to the beginning of the season at Daytona. It really helped to build the foundation for us, the platform from which we could spring from.”

While the Petit Le Mans came down to the final minutes in GTD, the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup did not.

AIM Autosport and Ferrari clinched the team and manufacturer championships in the race’s opening four-hour segment with Bill Sweedler and Townsend Bell taking the driver championships as soon as they hit the required two hours, 45 minutes of drive time needed to score points.