PWC: Heitkotter, Urry, Montecalvo clinch Utah wins

It was a frantic start and a frantic finish Saturday in the GT/GTA/GT Cup race at Utah Motorsports Campus, and when the dust settled, Bryan Heitkotter took his first Pirelli World Challenge win in GT and a seismic shift in points took place among the top three in the GT standings. Salt Lake City native Sloan Urry picked up his fifth win of the season in GT Cup, and Frankie Montecalvo led wire-to-wire for a 15-second win in GTA.

Polesitter and GT championship points leader Alvaro Parente came under fire from the drop of the green flag from Michael Cooper, who started second and sits third in points. Cooper got a nose ahead at the start but Heitkotter's No. 05 AE Replay XD Nissan GT Academy Nissan GT-R GT3 pushed ahead of him on the outside to take the lead. K-PAX Racing's Colin Thompson jumped from seventh to fourth.

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Michael Lewis brought out an early yellow when he went off in Turn 1 and couldn't get refired. On the lap 3 restart, Heitkotter led the field into Turn 1, but behind him Parente cut across the track entering the apex of the turn and made contact with Cooper, sending Parente into to the grass right of the track, and ending his day. Cooper was able to continue, but he was issued a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact in a somewhat puzzling decision.

"On the start it was OK," Cooper said. "We are down on power to a lot of these cars. The third place car drove around me and I was trying to hold the rest of the field through the first three corners. On the restart I was defending pretty hard and I didn't realize how slippery it was at the entry of Turn 1 and I clobbered Parente. I feel bad for taking him out. I feel worse that I let the team down."

For Parente, his once-massive points lead has evaporated, and his fast lap will put him 17th to start Sunday's race.

Patrick Long, who sits second in points and started fourth, was not far behind in fifth overall and kept the leaders in his sights, rebounding from a drop to eighth during the contact between Parente and Cooper. The RealTime Racing Acura TLX-GT of Ryan Eversley gained nine spots in first four laps, moving him from 12th up to as high as second behind Heitkotter. But he had an ill-handling car, and the Bentley Team Absolute Bentley Continental GT3 of Adderly Fong gave chase in a multiple-lap battle for the second spot. But no one could catch Heitkotter, who finished 3.6 seconds ahead.

“It’s pretty amazing," said Heitkotter. "Five years ago I was dreaming of racing and thanks to Nissan GT Academy I’m racing at a very high level now. I couldn’t be doing it without them, so massive thank you to Nissan and Playstation. It’s amazing to be here. The AE Autosport guys have just been working so hard for the past year and a half, and it’s really nice to reward them with a win after all this time.”

In GT Cup, Urry, who trailed polesitter Alec Udell by 62 points entering Saturday, got a good jump at the green flag and took the lead into Turn 1. Urry and Udell battled throughout, with Udell catching back up and passing Urry with 22 ½ minutes to go. But Urry caught up and cut the lead to .025 seconds. He pulled up side-by-side with 11 minutes left but had to give way. Udell started to overheat and he backed off enough for Udell jump to a 1.3 second lead he would not relinquish.

“My smile says it all," Urry said. "It’s been a while since I’ve been this happy. To win at home and to win after such an intense battle is just incredibly rewarding.  I had a good start and took the lead but Alec put a lot of pressure on me.  He was on my tail for a while.  Once he got me, there was absolutely no way I was going to let that stick. I’ve got to thank the TruSpeed Autosport team.  They’ve kept digging and digging this year and they gave me a great car.  

"There was a huge contingency of my sponsors SecurityNational Mortgage and Avasis along with friends and family hanging out of the suite on the front straight … that helped power me to the win for sure and I can’t thank them enough for the continued support they give me.”

McKay Shaw finished third in GT Cup, followed by Alex Welch and Corey Fergus. 

At the same time, Fong put pressure on Eversley and even made slight contact with Eversley's bumper, but Eversley was able to hold a small lead. Long took advantage and caught up behind them.

Fong finally got past Eversley for second with eight minutes to go. Long went wide right – off the track – to try and take advantage. He got stuck behind Eversley but caught him a minute later for the third-place spot.

A mad rush at the end by K-PAX teammates Colin Thompson and Austin Cindric moved GTA leader Montecalvo – who ran as high as fourth overall – down to seventh overall. Eversley beat Thompson to the line by eight-thousandths of a second for fourth place.

Montecalvo kept GTA championship leader Martin Fuentes in second place from the drop of the green flag and checked out, leading by as much as 17 seconds. Michael Schein was third and Brenth Holden finished fourth.

"We've been struggling the entire year to really get [the car] settled to back where it was last year," Montecalvo said. "But I think our pace showed at the end of Road America and this race as well. I think it was a tire game out there. We stayed out of trouble, we were at the front for a long time but at the end I just had nothing left in the tires to keep pushing and stay up front."

Michael Lewis drove the GT No. 98 Calvert Dynamics/Curb-Agajanian Porsche 911 GT3 R to the fastest lap time of 1m49.525s, which qualifies him for P1 in Sunday’s Round 17 race.