PWC: Marcelli and Regitz take SprintX thriller

Bay Area veterans Steve and Ricky Cameron used their intimate track knowledge and expertise to put a winning car beneath Kyle Marcelli and Drew Regitz, who took a thrilling victory at the first of two Pirelli World Challenge SprintX "endurance" races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

With Regitz handling the opening portion of the one-hour event in the No. 19 Cameron Audi R8 LMS, and Marcelli installed to close, the V10-powered GT3 machine went on an epic run to upset what was beginning to look like a flag-to-flag win for Alex Job Racing/WeatherTech Racing. Marcelli and Regitz won by 1.338 seconds over the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Dodge Viper GT3-R driven by Mike Skeen and Dan Knox, and the AJR/WeatherTech Porsche 911 GT3 R shared by Cooper MacNeil and Gunnar Jeannette completed the podium.

"That was hard fought," Marcelli said of winning their first SprintX event. "The Cameron racing guys had this car hooked up. We made a lot of overtakes. Mike [Skeen] put up a good fight at the end; a little contact there. No hard feelings if he doesn't. That was a Hail Mary."

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Polesitter David Ostella balked on the crawl to the green flag in his No. 23 M1 Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 and watched as MacNeil flew around the outside to lead before the field crested the hill towards the braking zone at Turn 2. The mistake would prove costly as the WeatherTech driver held the lead and then benefitted from another Ostella mistake that dropped the Audi almost eight seconds behind until the race was red flagged nearing the halfway point.

A spin by George Kurtz in the No. 04 Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4 exiting Turn 6 left his car sitting sideways on the track, and with nowhere to go, the Ginetta GT4 driven by Harry Gottsacker plowed into the side of the Vantage just in front of the door. Both drivers were unhurt and climbed from their battered cars unaided.

Confusion entered the fray as some cars pitted – all while the pits were closed – which left the PWC officials to reorganize the jumbled field on pit lane after the track had been cleared. Once the extended reordering was completed, the field took to the track for the restart and most pitted at the end of the lap to complete the mandatory driver changes before the green flag waved.

MacNeil handed his Porsche over to Jeannette who was first out of the pits, and while the second-place Ostella climbed out to let Dion von Moltke take their Audi to the finish, it was Skeen, who took over from Dan Knox, sitting inches off Jeannette's bumper leaving the pits.

Von Moltke, restarting third, was shuffled backward by John Edwards' Mills Racing BMW Z4, and with the door open, more cars streamed through, including Marcelli. Marcelli – a man on a mission – pursued Edwards, eventually landed third, and began chasing Skeen.

Skeen, still in second, did his best to hound the Jeannette's Porsche, kept the gap to under a second, and pounced with 15 minutes remaining. Marcelli was quickly through as Jeannette fell from first to third in a matter of minutes and stalked Skeen with relentless fervor.

After ducking and dodging a few times into a few corners, Marcelli took a deep breath on the penultimate lap and made a wild pass around the outside of Skeen at Turn 10. Marcelli led into and through Turn 11, but Skeen wasn't about to give up.

Using the Viper's straightline acceleration advantage, Skeen repassed Marcelli on the right while cresting the hill and held the lead until they reached the braking zone. Marcelli dove to the inside where the Audi and Dodge briefly touched, and with the best line in front of him, the R8 powered out of the corner and held on to score a spectacular win.

Behind them, James Burke and David Askew won the GT CupX class in their DXDT Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo and Andrew Aquilante and Kurt Rezzetano won GTSX in their Calvert Dynamics Ford Mustang boss 302.

"I recommend everyone that has these cars to come out and play," Burke said of the big Huracans. "That red [flag] took all of our advantage away, but it was good in the end."

The decision by the Calvert team to bring a semi-retired car out to race proved to be well worth the effort.

"It was good," Aquilante said. "That whole red flag was like 'whoa, what do we do?' That was a lot of fun, gotta thank the [Calvert Dynamics] team for bringing the car out of mothballs to show what it can do."

UP NEXT: SprintX Race 2, 3:15 p.m. PT Sunday.