PWC: Heitkotter's busy month

In the space of a few weeks, the Nissan driver took his first wins in Pirelli World Challenge GT and a seventh SCCA Solo National Championship.

It was a heck of a month for Bryan Heitkotter. Within the span of a few weeks in August and September, he not only won his first professional races, taking back to back wins in Pirelli World Challenge GT at the Utah Motorsports Campus, he also scored his seventh SCCA Solo National Championship.

"It was a really good time," the driver of the No. 05 Always Evolving/NISMO Nissan GT-R GT3 says. "It's been something I've wanted to do for a long time, is win a professional race, and it's nice to finally get that checked off the list. Then it was right back home to work on my own car and take it to to the Solo Nationals. It was a pretty frantic month, but all in all really good."

By now you likely know Heitkotter's back story – he was the 2011 winner of the Nissan/Sony GT Academy that pit racing gamers against each other for a chance to compete in real cars. After beating the 16 finalists, he went through a driver development program and has been racing Nissans since – not only in Pirelli World Challenge, but in other parts of the world. He competed a full season in Touring Car in 2014 before getting the call to partner with James Davison in the GT-Rs in GTA. He was moved to the GT class after finishing third overall at Mid-Ohio last season. A little over a year later, he won his first races. Now he feels like he belongs in a paddock with multi-time World Challenge champions, factory racecar drivers, Le Mans winners and Indianapolis 500 veterans.

"Getting the win helps me feel like a bit more of an equal in the paddock, amongst the other drivers. Pretty much any driver who races in World Challenge GT at this level has won races, and I hadn't until Utah. So it's nice to get that done. It gives me that little extra sense of knowing that I belong here as a professional driver," he explains.

Heitkotter says he didn't know if his sophomore season in Pirelli World Challenge would be the one that brought him his first victory, but after a full season in GT in 2016, he certainly came into the season with more certainty that he could run with this crowd.

"The team I'm with is incredible, and I learned a lot my first year racing with them," he says. "Having that continuity and that momentum going into my second year, it was a big confidence booster and it was nice to be going into the year as a full-fledged GT driver. So I went into this season thinking championship from the first race. It's been a little bit of a different mindset and it's been helpful to be sort of free to race my teammate as an equal, so to speak."

That third place at Mid-Ohio last season was a bit of a turning point that led to Utah, he notes. Right about then was when a lot of things clicked for him and he really began to wrap his head around getting the most of the GT-R and doing well in this style of racing.

"I really started to jell with the team and the car, started putting things together such as learning how to manage the tire in various situations and getting the most from a weekend. I think it started to show in my performances. That was a big step. And then this year I kind of took another step when I led the first race of the season right out of the gate, and suddenly realized that I was right there. I had a couple of wins slip away in that first weekend, and that was extra motivation to seal the deal next time," he says.

While he doesn't have a shot at the title in 2016, he sits fifth in the championship and can finish no worse than sixth. Considering the company he's in – Patrick Long and Alvaro Parente fighting for the championship, and Cadillac teammates Johnny O'Connell and Michael Cooper ahead of him and Ryan Eversley right behind him, that's pretty darn good for a guy who apparently started this journey playing games.

However, Heitkotter's journey started well before. He's been competing for years in SCCA Solo, also known as autocross. While done at much slower speeds than road racing, and competition is against the clock instead of wheel to wheel, autocross rewards precision and commitment. After two days of competition on two different courses, Heitkotter's winning margin in Street Touring Ultra was only about a half second. A single mistake on an otherwise fast run can kill that easily.

While he enjoys winning, though, his motivations for continuing to compete in autocross after winning as a pro aren't all about the competition.

"I got into autocrossing when I was 18 and it was a lot of fun, and I met a lot of friends through autocross," he says. "That's one of the main reasons I still do – it because of all the friends I get to see who don't live where I live – so it's a chance to catch up with old friends and just have a good time. It's like vacation for me."

Heitkotter's vehicle of choice for Solo competition is also his daily driver, a 2007 Nissan 350Z with modified suspension, a limited slip differential and some other upgrades to make it competitive in its class. With another autocross championship in the books, it was time to concentrate on the final two weekends of the 2016 Pirelli World Challenge Championships and start thinking about 2017, about which he explains he can't say too much.

"There are things as yet to be decided," he explains. "Obviously, this is a good time to be performing, late in the year, and moving up in the championship. So it's all good things for my career. My long-term goal is to be racing at the highest level I can achieve for as long as possible. Hopefully next year, I'll be even further up i the championship. Who knows?"