Championship Picture Emerges as Smith, Mills, Esayian Win Miller GT, GT-A, GTS Round 15

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TOOELE, Utah – For the second straight year, the second-to-last race of the Pirelli World Challenge season produced a dynamic and dramatic shift in the GT and GTS championship battles. Last year the drama occurred at Sonoma Raceway; on Friday, it was at Miller Motorsports Park outside Salt Lake City, Utah.

While Guy Smith (GT), Michael Mills (GT-A) and Nick Esayian (GTS) took victories – in Smith’s and Esayian’s case, their first this season – the championship standings took on a significantly different look than they appeared heading into Round 15, the Pirelli World Challenge Nissan Championship Finale brought to you by Motul.
Officially, Johnny O’Connell (GT) will hold a 152-point lead over Mike Skeen, at 1486-1334. Meanwhile in GTS, Mark Wilkins is at 1340 with Lawson Aschenbach just two points behind at 1338. Cadillac and Audi are tied at 85 points for the GT Manufacturer’s Championship lead and Kia leads Ford by seven points (88-81) in GTS. In GT-A, Mills is at 745 ahead of Hedman at 684 and Knox at 667.
Results and points are final. Meanwhile, here’s how the race came to its dramatic conclusion.
In GT, Smith, of Beverley, U.K.  in the No. 88 Bentley/Breitling/Mobil 1 Bentley Continental GT3 had the Motul pole position but was one of several drivers to get away slowly from the standing start for the 50-minute sprint race.
However, there was chaos nearly all the way through the 41-car grid as the lights went out for the standing start. Second-starting Mike Skeen, of Charlotte, N.C., in the No. 2 Hawk Performance Audi R8 Ultra, was unable to progress past pit out due to an apparent axle failure on his car. Additionally, Alex Figge, of Denver, Col., in the No. 9 K-PAX Racing McLaren 12C GT3 stalled on the line after starting sixth.
Meanwhile in GTS, disaster struck the first-place and third-place starting teammates from Kia Racing/Kinetic Motorsports. Points leader and polesitter Mark Wilkins, of Toronto, had a halfshaft break in his No. 38 PutOnTheBrakes.org Kia Optima and was collected, with nowhere to go, by teammate Nic Jonsson, of Buford, Ga., in the No. 36 DonorsChoose.org Kia Optima.
The Kias weren’t alone in having issues early. Dean Martin, of Westland, Mich., in the No. 50 Picture Cars East/Rehagen Racing Ford Mustang Boss 302S, had a mechanical failure strike him before he even made the grid. Martin had recovered to race this weekend following his Sonoma crash, now racing in his third different Ford chassis this season, but was unable to start Round 15.
The incidents forced a full-course caution and also jumbled the running order. Robert Thorne, of Littleton, Col., who started fourth, emerged in the lead in GT in the No. 6 K-PAX Racing McLaren 12C GT3 ahead of Ryan Dalziel, of Winter Park, Fla. in the No. 31 EFFORT Racing Porsche GT3 R and a fast-starting Johnny O’Connell, of Flowery Branch, Ga., in the No. 3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac CTS-V.R. Dalziel started fifth, while O’Connell made another stellar start to climb from eighth to nearly first by Turn 1.
In GTS, Jack Baldwin, of Marietta, Ga., took the lead after starting second in the No. 73 RESET-MD Porsche Cayman S with Esayian, of San Diego, Calif., climbing into a season-best second in the No. 34 Natural Cures Aston Martin GT4.
The race resumed on Lap 5 after the caution and the track cleaning. From there, the race could properly continue.
Smith, who’d fallen to sixth off the line, made it back to third by Lap 5 behind Thorne and Dalziel, with O’Connell and teammate Andy Pilgrim, of Boca Raton, Fla., in the No. 8 Cadillac Racing Cadillac CTS-V.R then fourth and fifth. Smith’s restart was awarded the Invisible Glass Clean Pass of the Race.
Thorne drove consistently in the lead from there through Lap 13. The 13 laps led were Thorne’s first this season and the first for the K-PAX McLaren overall this year.
But on Lap 14, Thorne’s win quest ended when he and GTS driver Brad Adams, of New Orleans, La., in the No. 96 Voodoo/Dat Dog/Yo MTV Raps Ford Mustang Boss 302S made contact. Thorne was spun and fell back to fifth, and he fell to sixth a lap later.
The contact produced an opportunity for Smith to move into the lead on Lap 14. Smith had got around Dalziel for second on Lap 9, when the Scot pitted with both a tire puncture and what was later diagnosed as a clutch issue. Once Smith made it to the lead, that made for both his and Bentley’s first laps led in the series this year, as well.
Smith was able to hold off all comers from there en route to victory by 3.473 seconds, at an average speed of 73.152 mph.

"I've really enjoyed my time so far in Pirelli World Challenge, the series has welcomed myself, Bentley and Dyson Racing with open arms," said Smith. "I knew the Bentley was going to be good on tires during the race and I knew from racing in Europe that the McLaren could go off a bit, so I was just biding my time a bit.  When I got behind Robert, he was quick, but I knew my opportunities to pass him would be in traffic.  When you get to my age, one thing you get is that you can see something before it really happens.  I could see he was taking a dive so I just hit the brakes and was able to get around him.  He drove really well, but unfortunately for him he had contact."
The battle behind him was for second. O’Connell, as he did at Road America, held off a hard-charging Butch Leitzinger, of State College, Pa., in the No. 08 Bentley/Breitling/Mobil 1 Bentley Continental GT3 for position. The difference was this was for P2, versus the final podium position as it was at Round 8 in June.
Pilgrim finished fourth, for his best result in the last seven races, with Anthony Lazzaro, of Atlanta, Ga., in the No. 61 R. Ferri Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 rounding out the top-five. Thorne ended in sixth; Figge, after his stall at the start, recovered to eighth.
In ninth overall, Mills, of Angleton, Texas, in the No. 41 EFFORT Racing Porsche GT3 R secured his sixth GT-A win of the season. Mills took the lead on Lap 8 after Tim Pappas, of Boston, Mass., in the returning No. 54 Black River Caviar Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3, had a mechanical issue resign him to the pits.

"There's enough points out there where if I DNF tomorrow (Saturday), I can still lose it, but for sure, this is a step in the right direction to sew this thing up to get a championship for EFFORT and championship for Porsche and get one for my family and me and MSR Houston," said Mills. "It means a lot to all of us."
Marcelo Hahn, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the No. 0 Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo FL2 was second with Alex Welch, of Englewood, Col., third in the No. 76 GMG Racing/Prestige Imports/Morgan Adams Foundation Audi R8 Ultra. This is Welch’s first series podium.
The GTS race, like the GT race, saw the dominant driver early run aground of trouble not of his own doing.
Baldwin led away cleanly following the restart with Esayian holding steady in second behind him.
Esayian’s opportunity came on Lap 19, when the No. 20 Laguna Bicycles/Crown Seven/Invisible Glass Wiper Blades Lamborghini Gallardo FL2 GT car driven by Andy Lee, of Colorado Springs, Col., made contact with Baldwin. Baldwin recovered but Esayian made it through. 
For Esayian, it marked his second career win, and first since the first race at Virginia International Raceway in 2010. To tie a nice bow on the “this race resembled Sonoma 2013” storyline, this also marks TRG-AMR’s first Pirelli World Challenge win since that race, when Brandon Davis took the checkered flag.

"Today was a challenge to say the least," said Esayian. "Chasing Jack for the better part of the first 8 or 10 laps and he got tangled up in some traffic and I was able to get around. The season has been a challenge.  The team's worked hard and we've had some mechanical gremlins so to be able to put together a winning effort today was big."
Baldwin finished a hard-luck second, 3.592 seconds in arrears, for his third straight podium result.
Emerging with the final podium position for both his first career Pirelli World Challenge podium and top-five finish was Drew Regitz, of Denver, Col., in the No. 02 TRG-AMR North America Aston Martin GT4. Esayian and Regitz both qualified in the top-five and were able to parlay those efforts into a double team podium.
In fourth, and making a serious dent in Wilkins’ championship lead, was Lawson Aschenbach, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., in the No. 1 Blackdog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro.
Finishing fifth and gaining two points for Ford in the Manufacturer’s Championship was Jack Roush Jr., of Livonia, Mich., in the No. 60 ROUSH Road Racing Ford Mustang Boss 302R.
Aschenbach’s move on Roush for fourth on Lap 20 was awarded the Cadillac CTS-V Move of the Race. He also earned the Sunoco Hard Charger award with a gain of seven positions from start to finish.
Of note, Alec Udell, of The Woodlands, Texas in the No. 17 Watson Racing/MDG Ford Mustang Boss 302S finished sixth in GTS and took home the Optima Batteries Best Standing Start award with a gain of eight positions off the line.
Also of note, Mark Klenin, of Denver, Col. in the No. 62 Invisible Glass/Premiere Copier/SCHOMP Aston Martin GT4 and Michael Cooper, of Syosset, N.Y., in the No. 28 Blackdog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro ended seventh and eighth for season-best results. Klenin’s seventh is a career-best.

Saturday's 50-minute Round 16 race is scheduled to go green at 2:30 P.M. MDT/4:30 P.M. EDT, with live streaming on world-challengetv.com.