IMSA: Kimber-Smith, Alon take PC honors

Tom Kimber-Smith and Robert Alon drove their No. 52 Chevrolet-powered ORECA FLM09 Prototype Challenge car to a narrow 1.736s victory over the No. 8 Starworks car of Alex Popow and Renger van der Zande in the Continental Monterey Grand Prix, held Sunday afternoon at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

In the GT Daytona class, the No. 23 Alex Job Racing/Team Seattle Porsche 911 RSR of Alex Ribera and Mario Farnbacher dominated practice, qualifying and then the race, finishing 3.632 seconds over the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 of Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan. A surprising third was the No. 007 TRG-AMR Aston Martin GT3 of Brandon Davis and James Davison.

"Clearly Porsche has a very good car that suits Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca," said Riberas, who is from Spain. "This is my first time here, and I have to say now it is one of my favorite tracks." Teammate Farnbacher also had the fastest lap in the GTD class in the race, a 1.26.124.

The race was the second half of a double-header – the road course, at 2.238 miles, is considered too short for all four of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes, so the Prototype Challenge and GT Daytona cars were paired for one race, and the Prototype and GT Le Mans class ran together in an earlier race. The No. 60 Shank Racing Honda-Ligier took the Prototype victory in that race, and the new No. 67 Ford GT took its first win in GTLM today.

Kimber-Smith said the PC win came down to saving fuel, part of a one-pit-stop strategy in the two-hour race. "It's hard to save fuel when someone is trying to chase you down," he said, but van der Zande, in second, was also conserving fuel on a one-stop plan. "It looks like we're going to have a good year," Kimber-Smith said.

The most compelling drive of the afternoon was by the No. 54 CORE Autosport car of Colin Braun and Jonathan Bennett. The car had to start last from pit lane, and then had to serve a drive-through penalty, putting it not only well behind all the PC cars, but the GT Daytona cars. Near the end Braun, laying down the fastest lap of the race at 1:20.380, was nearly a second a lap faster than the leader.

Next up for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship: The Chevrolet Sports Car Classic Presented by Metro Chevy Dealers in downtown Detroit.