Bill Auberlen became the all-time winner in IMSA victories on Saturday, set the record in a GTD class victory with teammate Robby Foley during the Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway.
Auberlen made the 61st victory in the North 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3, and broke a bond with Scott Pruett.
“It’s great,” Auberlen told the IMSA Wire Service. I said my best career win last year was Petit Le Mans (win No. 60); I think this one should be up there. … It’s probably the best win of my career. To do it with Robby, Turner, BMW, everyone, I’m super happy. ”
Auberlen led the final 53 minutes of the two-hour, 40-minute race, defeating an aggressive move by class runner-up Mario Farnbacher in Meyer Shank Racing’s No 86 Acura NSX GT3 with Curb-Agajanian.
The record-setting moment when @BillAuberlen took checkered flag and secured his record 61st @IMSA victory.@BMWMotorsport @Turnermotrsport #MichelinVIR / #IMSA pic.twitter.com/tzEqdaWvGi
– Michelin Racing USA (@MichelinRaceUSA) August 22, 2020
The victory came 27 years after Auberlen’s inaugural victory on Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
“This was the most nervous hour of my life,” Auberlen said. ‘When I got about 35 minutes, every little calculated mistake or whatever I made, I would talk to myself,‘ Don’t blow this! ‘This time it was all in my head, trying not to shudder, to get this monkey off my back. Now we can lower our heads for the season and try to win this championship. ”
Said Foley: “Having a guy like Bill as my teammate to relax on a bit and just see how he does and executes things and learns from him is just a great opportunity. Being a very small part of his historical career is a very rewarding experience, but also fun to be a part of. ”
In the GTLM class, Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor won in the no. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R for the second consecutive race and third this season, and benefited from a late pit stop for a cut left rear tire from lead by Nick Tandy in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR-19.
Garcia limped to the finish with a broken rear diffuser shaking his car over the closing rags.
“Things are definitely going our way,” said Garcia, who won by 3.5 seconds over Bruno Spengler and Connor De Phillippi’s No. 25 BMW M8 GTE. ‘We can not complain about that. To do this, you need a fast car and a team to drive all the time. We have that. We had our problems like the other teams did, but the most important thing is that the ones we had were early so we could recover immediately. “
Garcia said the rear diffuser broke at the same time leaving Tandy with 18 minutes left, but the Corvette driver was able to baby the car to the finish.
“Jordan did a very good job in his middle stint to ride back and keep the gap behind the leaders,” Garcia said. ‘When I jumped in, the race was pretty much done. All I could do was keep some pressure on the 911 and not let him go and have an easy race until the end. But we had our problems at the same time.
‘At first I thought it was the terminal because it felt really bad. Once I got used to it, I could tell it didn’t really interfere with the performance. I had enough of a hole after 25 by about 12 or 13 seconds. I could manage that in a way. It was very stressful. Fortunately, the C8.R around is very strong. We just have to keep this momentum going. ”
Taylor and Garcia lead the championship standings in GTLM 165-146 over defending champions Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor, who finished fifth on Saturday.
The WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will return September 4-6 on Road Atlanta.
