PWC: Parente, Schein, Udell winners at Mid-Ohio

Alvaro Parente's mid-race pass on McLaren teammate Austin Cindric clinched his fifth win of the season in Round 14 of the Pirelli World Challenge at Mid-Ohio.

In GTA, Michael Schein in the No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R took advantage of his third pole of the season and Frankie Montecalvo's absence to pick up the win over points leader Martin Fuentes, who finished second in the Ferrari 458 Italia GT3. Joseph Toussaint finished third.

Alec Udell held off a hard-charging Sloan Urry for his eighth win of the season in GT Cup. Urry earned his 11th top-two finish.

A first-lap, first-turn incident collected JD Davison, Michael Cooper, the GTA entry of Michael McCann and the No. 77 GTA entry of Preston Calvert. Cooper was able to continue and finish seventh, but McCann's day ended. Davison suffered heavy damage and did not continue. Also unable to finish the race was the No. 88 of Adderly Fong, who slowed on track before the green flag and was forced to bring the car into the pits and retire.

Spencer Pumpelly brought out a lengthy yellow flag on lap 3 after side-by-side contact with Colin Thompson caused damage to the right rear and sent him deep into the gravel, ending his day.

At the same time at the front, Parente pushed his McLaren 650S GT3 into the lead by moving down underneath Cindric in Turn 5.

The green flag flew with just under 33 minutes to go and Parente got a good jump, while behind him Bryan Heitkotter got a good run on Jon Fogarty for the third spot. But once again, the back of the field saw a multi-car incident when Patrick Long ran over curbing and got into Colin Thompson, ripping off the back end Thompson's car and sending Kyle Marcelli spinning to bring out third yellow of the afternoon. Long was black-flagged and served a drive-through penalty, although not before a warning of disqualification.

Parente had a solid restart when the race went green with just under 24 minutes to go.

With 20 minutes to go Urry tried to make his move on leader Udell to no avail, but he stuck to Udell's bumper for the remainder of the race.

“I got a good start but Sloan made a some aggressive moves and we touched a few times,” Udell stated. “Luckily I was able to open up a gap and get the win. It was a very competitive race. This win helps towards our goal of the championship. I’ll drive to Clemson (S.C.) next week for my junior year in college. It’s a 14-hour drive from Houston. I’ll get moved into my house there and start school in two weeks. I’m majoring in mechanical engineering and we start to work on car-based activities this year.

"In the meantime, I’ll race at Utah before school starts in the middle of August. It’s been a busy summer with my racing and my internship in Austin also. But I’m anxious to get back to school and see a few football games too. Go Tigers!”

Cindric caught up to Parente with nine minutes to go but was unable to stop his teammate, who beat him by one second.

“Mid-Ohio is a very unique track," Parente said. "It’s not like anything really in Europe. It’s a tricky place too. You seem to be sliding before you get grip. But it is fun to drive. I think Austin got a little loose and wide as we came on to the back straightaway and I was able to get a run on him for the lead (on lap three). He is a very talent young driver. He may be only 17 years old but he has a lot of racing laps under him already. He has a very bright future in motorsports."

“The start of the race was pretty wild with many spins and cars going off track," Schein noted. "I had to concentrate on my lines and be ready for each restart. The Wright Motorsports crew did a great job with the Porsche 911 since we tested here last week. I think that gave us a head start over the other guys due to Friday’s canceled practice session due to the rain. Once we started running consistently with no yellow flags in the race, I could drive a good pace and stay out front."