PWC: Cooper wins at Mid-Ohio as Parente falters

A series of bad breaks for K-PAX Racing and brilliant driving by Michael Cooper tightened the GT points race, as Cooper took advantage of a hot start to pick up a win in Sunday’s Round 15 GT/GTA competition at the Pirelli World Challenge Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio

Cooper, starting second in the No. 8 Cadillac ATS-V.R. GT3, pulled off the first-lap pass for the lead on the No. 9 K-PAX Racing McLaren 650S GT3 of Alvaro Parente on the outside of Turn 1, and RealTime Racing's Ryan Eversley followed in his Acura TLX-GT, dropping Parente to third and opening up a gap of more than four seconds. Farther back in the field, contact at the drop of the green flag left Austin Cindric with left-front damage.

Michael Schein drove the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R to his second win of the weekend in GTA, with points leader Martin Fuentes again the runner-up. Michael McCann rebounded from Saturday's multi-car wreck to finish third.

In GT Cup, Alec Udell made the race-winning pass on polesitter Sloan Urry when Urry went into Turn 4 too hot, opening the door for Udell to earn his ninth win of the year. Corey Fergus finished third.

"I just stayed patient and looked for the right opportunities to move up in the field," Udell said. "It’s a good points weekend for us and keeping our goal of the championship right in our sights."

With 13 minutes remaining, leaders Cooper and Eversley were given room by GTA driver Preston Calvert but Parente got stuck behind him. With Calvert possibly not seeing Parente, the two made contact and Parente went off in the grass, filling his grill with debris. Overheating forced Parente – whose points lead over third-place Cooper was 118 points – to pit about two minutes later. He returned with eight minutes to go but could only salvage a 14th-place finish. Patrick Long, who sits second in points, finished ninth.

With 34 minutes remaining, K-PAX Racing's Cindric slowed significantly due to a mechanical issue with boost. He was forced to pit and finished last. Teammate Colin Thompson was not able to compete Sunday after suffering extensive damage in the same crash that collected McCann and Davison.

Eversley closed the margin on Cooper and tried to make a pass for the lead in the final 10 minutes, but the lap traffic of GT Cup driver Urry closed the door. Eversley finished second and Johnny O'Connell rounded out the podium O’Connell managed to hold the spot for the remaining laps of the race and placed him on the podium again, his first appearance since Round 10 at Lime Rock where he also finished third.

"I knew I had to be aggressive at the start and go for it," said Cooper, who won for the second time this season. "It wasn't to the extent of all or nothing, just tempered aggression.  Parente and I were close going down the straight, I was able to out brake him and get around the outside. I had a nose in front of him going into Turn 5 and was able to complete the pass. Eversley had me under pressure after that and for most of the race. The traffic today was crazy. I lost time a couple of laps and had to make it back up. It is a great day for Cadillac Racing with Johnny also on the podium."

“I got a run on Michael Lewis at the start and he left me a lane on the outside,” said Eversley. “So I went soft on the brakes into Turn Four and tried to keep Parente outside of me. We went through the Esses and I used the Acura TLX power to get a gap. I’m really happy to have a weekend like this here in front of so many Honda associates.”

JD Davison was a big mover, up 11 spots from 16th to a fifth-place finish after being collected in Saturday's multi-car crash.

"It was a tough start for us today,” Schein said. “Martin got a little bit of jump on me and we were side-by-side in a few corners. So I stayed aggressive and I think I got him in turn eight for the class lead. I was on the inside there and he was outside when I took the lead. It was a lot different race than Saturday. It was green flag for the entire 50 minutes and it felt qualifying the whole way. I just had to be on it the entire time. I saw Martin in my mirror the whole time. There were parts of the race where I would gap him and I would relax just slightly and he would be closing. Then I had to push harder. But the car stayed beneath me the full race and I am happy to get the double win this weekend. It was a lot of hard work. It feels great.”

Fuentes, driving the No. 07 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, entered Round 15 as the overall GTA points leader and managed to retain the position with a second-place finish and the record-setting competition fast lap (provisional) of 1m21.427s in the next-to-last lap of the race.